SAO - The Century Voyage
by Johnny Wycliffe
Summary: Kirito is a young man who is about to receive an update to his software. Unfortunately for him, his update is flawed, and he gets a glimpse of a world he wasn't meant to see... Ours. AU adventure. Updates sporadically. Pairing(s) to be determined.
1. Chapter 1: Orange player

A/N: SPRING BREAK! I'm going to write as much as I can during this next week, but After that, updates will be slow as molasses.

This is an AU where SAO is essentially the real world for it's players, and they know nothing of their flesh bodies. I modified a few game rules (like the PK color and permanence of said color) to fit SAO being built as a permanent system from the ground up, but for the most part it will remain consistent with SAO.

On to the story!

* * *

I opened my eyes to find I was alone. That's not unusual

I'm Kirito. It's a combination of my given first and last names. I'm a swordsman of Aincrad.

I'm also in a lot of trouble.

"Shit! It's almost time for my update!"

I scramble to my feet and pinch my right thumb and forefinger together. A purple rectangle appears in the air, giving me a readout of several things I didn't care about just now.

"Where did I put my- ah, there it is!"

I sigh as the weight of my wooden practice sword drops on my back. Normally, unequipping it is considered bad form or suicide, depending on what level you're on, but I'm confident in my abilities.

I tap a few more buttons, over to family, and put a trace on mom. A glowing blue line appears on the map and I orient myself to head in the indicated direction.

The walk back is uneventful. Monsters haven't pushed down to this level yet, but dad says its just a matter of time.

Mom and dad are merchants. They like to hang around town and trade for goods that are hard to find on these levels. Some of the stuff I've carried around for them was s-class quality, and only a few people could actually use them.

Our shop is located on the tenth level, only two levels from the monsters. Mom is constantly worried about it now, but dad says he's confident in the Clearers.

The Clearers are those people who put effort into driving the monsters back. At least, that's what they used to do before they started getting pushed back by hordes of nasties.

My whole life until this point, I've been training to be one of the Clearers. Most people nowadays would rather train in black-smithing, woodworking, or cooking or some other non-violent discipline. It makes for a low death toll, as well as a very vibrant city. My parents wanted me to train to be a merchant instead, but I always ended up back in the field with my training sword.

Thankfully, the creatures on level ten were all low level things not exterminated or controlled by the army. It meant that only level one or two creatures could attack me, and even a five year old could defeat one of those with their bare hands.

I enter the city and watch as the HP bar in the top corner of my screen disappears. It's not needed inside the city, seeing as the city has a magical protection from PKing.

I wander over to my parent's shop, called "The Sheep's Udder," which is completely ridiculous. Nobody even knows what a sheep is, but most suspect it's the white fluffy thing painted on the sign. Mom says grandpa named the shop before he died and gave it to her.

"I'm home!"

Mom looks up from the counter. "Hi, Kirito. How was hunting?"

I open my menu and drop all of the meat and hides onto the table.

"Hey! What have I told you about that! Just open a trade window, for god's sake." She grumps.

I shrug and head upstairs. There, I access my wardrobe and select my regular clothes. A red sweater with brown pants. Yay.

I walk downstairs and watch as one of my friend walks in.

"Hi, Lizbeth."

She smiles up at me. "Find anything interesting out in the forest?"

I roll my eyes. "It's been picked over from long before now. All I find are wild frogs."

Frogmeat is pretty good, in my opinion, but nobody else seems to like it that much. Still, something is better than nothing, even with e-class ingredients.

She makes a face. "I'm glad I don't have to eat the things."

Lizbeth is a blacksmith. She's sixteen, a year older than me, and has had her update for that year. She's also made quite the name for herself selling high quality weapons.

"You should try one, they're really pretty good." I coax. Liz was perfectly happy living inside the confines of the city, forging weapons (even if it was going out of style) and having a warm bed every night. Also, she was content to eat bread if that was all she could afford, not branching out at all.

"Yeah, not until you start paying me too. Anyway, happy update!"

"Thanks!" I give her a crooked grin.

"Any thought into what you're going to spec into?"

"I'm going sword all the way. I plan on staying with one handed swords, no branching."

She smirks. "Are you sure you don't want to spec into blacksmithing? I could use an apprentice."

"Sure! I'll be your apprentice if you agree to eat frog legs for an entire year and nothing else."

She makes a face before we both burst out laughing.

"So, one handed sword, huh. I picked up mace just in case, but I haven't used that skill in forever. Probably couldn't even activate my skills if I tried."

I shrug. "I'm not sure you can lose the skills-"

She bops my head lightly, to avoid getting a warning. "I mean muscle memory, duh."

I run my head where she hit me. "Right. Well, once I'm finally rid of this level 20 lock, I'll get stronger pretty quickly." I smirk. "I give it a month before I could beat you."

She looks about ready to (playfully) hit me again, but then Klein walks in.

Klein is a samurai. He's on the front lines along with the other Clearers usually, but since he's my friend, he came down to see me. He's about 19, and is my main inspiration to become a swordsman. Of course, samurai aren't really that powerful, focusing more on control. Klein's the leader of a guild even at his young age, and it's one of the few really successful ones.

"Hi Klein!" Lizbeth calls. "How's your Ziatchi?"

Klein grins and pulls up his menu. The curved sword drops onto the table in front of him. Lizbeth picks it up and examines it. "You haven't been keeping proper care of it! It's durability is in the red zone!"

Klein rubs the back of his head. "We got attacked last night, and I haven't had time to send you a message about it. I swear, it was green 24 hours ago!"

Lizbeth narrows her eyes in suspicion, but let's go of it. She keeps the sword though. "I'll have it back to you in two days."

Klein sighs. "Guess it can't be helped anyways. So, Kirito, you still going to be a swordsman?"

I raise my fist. "Hell yeah!"

He smirks. "Well, I've got a good position in my guild-"

"Uh-huh. I'd rather not be an item organizer."

Klein puts on a mock whine. "Aw, but I haven't had my crystals put in the right storage for months!"

Lizbeth rolls her eyes.

We continue to banter on until my menu pops open of its own accord.

"Do you want to update?"

Klein nods. "Just be warned, it's really weird when you update. I don't remember it too well, but I remember thinking that I was going to go insane."

I nod. I had been told as much by others. As I press the ok button, I look up at my friends, my last thought as they fade away is that I hope my height stat updates so I'm no longer stuck at four feet tall.

* * *

I have updated before. Everyone updates once when they are five, once, when they turn fifteen, and once when they turn sixty, if you live that long. When you're five, you get sedated first to avoid traumatizing you, so the first time anyone experiences an update is when they are fifteen. This update is the one that lifts all the parental controls, let's you carry a real weapon, and let's you choose a job.

I open my eyes to find a sea of blue. It even feels like water, but thicker. At first, I think that there's nothing else around me, but a glint of metal catches my eye. I start to swim toward it, but something suddenly tugs at my spine. I turn my head to find a myriad of tubes attached to my spine.

I swat at the tubes, and somewhere an alarm sounds. I turn around to see blurry shapes moving around through to goop. I open my mouth to speak, but it's filled with the blue liquid. I don't seem to be drowning, though, nor did the air gauge pop up.

I decide that it was abut time to open my menu. I slowly push my thumb and forefinger together and swipe downwards.

Nothing.

I do it again. Still nothing. What the hell?

The shapes through the goop start buzzing. One of them starts moving around erratically. The other two move closer and the buzzing becomes louder.

...Wait, is that speech? I could've sworn I heard something like...

What's sedation? It sounds dirty.

My vision blurs and goes black for a while. As if waking from sleep, color returns and I blink a few times as the familiar walls of my parent's shop come into focus. I barely have time to recover my bearings before Lizbeth tackles me.

I look down at the form clutching my arm. "Whoa. You're short!" I exclaim.

She narrows her eyes. "What were you doing? We were all worried about you!"

"Huh?" I look at the clock in the bottom corner of my screen. "I've been gone four hours?!"

She nods. "We all got so worried when you didn't come back right away. Are you alright?"

I look down at my arm, which is still clutched in hers. "I can't check with you on my arm."

She blushes and lets go.

I open my menu and watch at the purple box expands. "Let's see, friends list is still there, stats... stats are unassigned, for some reason. Hmm, I'll do that in a moment. Trace system is still there, map is still there. Oh, new equip options!"

I happily navigate all the new sub menus as Lizbeth pokes Klein awake and then goes to get my parents, who all quickly return.

"So many new options! Since all my skills reset, I'm going to put it all into useful stuff."

Lizbeth frowns. "They really reset? That's not normal. Show me your screen?"

I press a small button on the bottom corner, and Lizbeth's eyes focus on the words as they become visible to her. "This is really weird. Good for you! Now you don't have to put points into useless things! Damn, this is a once in a lifetime event. Lucky!"

She slaps me on the back, and a tiny bell sound rings as a purple warning window appears above my head.

"Oops." She smiles.

Klein pats me on the back slightly lighter, and he gets no warning. "Congratulations! Seriously though, if you need a job in a guild, just let me know. Even if we run out of openings, I can always recommend you to some other guild."

"Thanks. I'll look you up once I get some combat levels... Er, some actual combat levels, not just the ones I just assigned."

He smirks. "Jeez, so arrogant. You already wasted four hours in the ether, so your officially four hours behind everyone else."

My eyes widen. "Oh crap! I need to get to-"

Klein laughs and taps my forehead. "Don't be in such a hurry. You don't even have a decent sword yet."

I grumble a bit, but he does have a point. Then I jerk my head upright as I realize. "I'm not going to be able to get any weapons! I put all my skills into one handed sword, so I'm useless at everything else!"

Lizbeth sighs. "Fine. I'll make you a weapon, but you're going to have to pay it off, alright?"

I turn to her. Man, she was suddenly so short. "Really?"

She nods. "I'd feel bad if you went out and died because nobody gave you a decent weapon..." She coughs. "I... May have made you a longsword already."

She open her inventory before a black sword pops out of in air and lands on the table.

Mom mutters something about the durability of the table, but I ignore her. "Whoa! This is awesome!" I pick it up with ease.

Klein looks at the sword. "You specced strength, then. Otherwise, your hand would've lots its grip by now."

I nod. "I'll get some speed soon. After all, with a sword this good- Lizbeth! Are planning on turning me into a debt slave?" I turn to her in horror.

Her cheeks flush. "No! I wasn't going to charge you the market price, and, well, it is update day for you..."

"Oh, ok. We'll figure it out later."

I step into the center of the room to avoid smashing anything, and take two experimental swipes. Gasps are heard from the four gathered as both strikes leave blue trails.

I smile. "Practicing in the forest paid off after all, huh?" I swipe the sword back and forth in front of me once, then habitually try to slide it into my already occupied sheath. I quickly switch hands and open the weapons menu with my right, unequipping my practice sword.

The new sword slides easily into its sheath.

"So, why's it called Black Ice?" I ask of Lizbeth.

She shrugs. "I just make 'em. They get named by the system. It suits you, though."

I smile. Yes, it does. I check my clock again. "Hey, Klein. Have a backup sword?"

"Yeah. Want to go hunting to test out that new sword?"

Mom sighs. "Just be very careful."

I grin. "I'm going with a Clearer. It's not like I'm going totally unprepared either." I do sober up enough to think a bit before rushing off. "Klein, how much is a teleport crystal? I kind of want that as a safety net."

He grins. A trade window pops up in front of both of us before two teleport crystals appear in it. "I can spare a few for a friend."

"Awesome."

Lizbeth stretches and yawns. "I'm going to go now. Klein, come in Tuesday, and I'll have your weapon ready. Kirito, I want to see you as soon as you're back."

Wh- what was that wink for? Why is Klein snickering?

"Let's get down to the fifth level. We should be able to handle things down there no problem." Klein says after his little fit had ended. Don't worry, Kaguya, Sundancer. I'll bring him back in one piece."

Oh, right. Since only our chosen names (which can be customized once a month) are on display, he only knows my parents by their chosen names.

I wave goodbye to them as I step out the door, and focus ahead as my blood starts to pump faster in anticipation.

Klein wastes no time in getting us down to the fifth level. He flashes his emblem at the army members standing watch, and they let us pass without any difficulty.

Oddly, floor five has some hidden nest of creatures that nobody could find. Consequently, nobody chose to live on five, but lived on six or four instead. Most people lived on one, but a significant portion had decided to move upwards.

Soon, we come to a cave. Klein stops and turns to me.

"You ready? Make sure you have your crystal in your pocket, and your sword drawn."

I nod and comply with his instructions. After all, he's the Clearer.

"Look, see over there? It's a cave spider. I know you know how to use sword skills, so I'm not going to go over that. Just relax. I'm here if you... need me..."

I flick the sword to get rid of the clinging shards of creature. "This is a nice sword! I'll have to give Lizbeth something nice in exchange."

Klein smirks again. "I'm sure you'll be able to think of something."

I ready my sword again and turn back to the tunnel. "So, what's at the end of this tunnel?"

"It's a queen spider. She's nasty, but if you can dodge her attacks, she's a pushover."

Another spider drops down from the ceiling. Before it even hits the ground, it's bisected with a one handed swing. "Geez, if they keep throwing enemies at me, I might end up leveling on my first day."

Klein shakes his head. "You're above average already. Most swordsmen don't come to this cave until they're level 6 or above. It's amazing that you've been doing this so handily."

I smile.

We continue to walk forward, and true to form, I not only level up once, but three times. I put each of those three points into speed instead of strength, because I could tell I was missing because of my strike speed. My strength was already enough to one hit everything that kept coming after us. Klein kept shaking his head. "You know, I might not accept you into our guild, since your already way too powerful. You'll soon rival me!"

I double check for monsters, but find none. "Even so, you're definitely better suited to leading. Charisma pours out of your ears."

He scratches his head, his bandana slipping a bit. "If it was, I might have a little better luck with women, don't you think?"

I shrug. "How would I know?"

Suddenly, a low hiss vibrates through the cave.

"Well, here she is. Ready?"

I brandish my sword. "Yeah, let's get going."

We turn the corner.

"Gah! That's big!"

"And she drops a lot of col. You might be able to pay for that sword with just her." He grins. "Well, if you were soloing it. If I help, it'll be a lot less for you."

I look at my inventory. The spider queen seems to be waiting for us to do something, so it's safe for the moment.

"I could still pay for it with what I have now, since I've been effectively soloing this whole time anyways." I look at the queen spider. "So, how do we do this?"

Klein sheaths his sword. "Go for it. If you're in real trouble, use your crystal and I'll defeat it for you."

I narrow my eyes. "Yeah, right. If I need to teleport out, I'm coming right back as soon as I'm healed back up, and stealing that kill."

He grins and steps back a single step. "Good luck."

"Thanks." I lower my stance and feel my sword glowing. I yell as a charge forward, and the queen spider rears up as I approach.

Looking back on it, it was a thirty second battle. When I was actively fighting, my mind sped up so fast I was able to see just what the spider was planning on doing. A twitch of its left foreleg would signal a swipe, and it sinking backwards was preparation for a lunge. Each time it went for the lunge, it opened its head for attack,a nd I swiftly struck it each time the opportunity presented itself.

Soon, it bursts into streams of particles that drift to the ground, and a congratulations message appears above the corpse.

Klein claps as I sheath my sword. "Excellent. Jeez, run through here a few more times and you'll be ready to go for the front lines."

I smirk. "So, not too bad a job, huh?"

"If we had more people on the front lines like you, we would be on floor fifty already." He laughs, but stops abruptly as a chime sounds. His fingers deftly select the message.

His eyes scan it for a second or two and then he pulls out a crystal. "I need to go. Floor twelve is being attacked. Before you ask, don't follow. Teleport home right away." He grins. "It's not a major attack, but my second in command is getting worried. See ya!"

He then holds the crystal out in front of him. "Teleport, Anaheim!"

He disapears in a shower of sparkles.

I pull out a crystal as well. "Uh, teleport, Rockfort!"

My view scatters and coalesces as I appear on the pedestal back on floor ten. There, Lizbeth is waiting. "Hey, Kirito!"

"Hi, Liz. What's up?"

"How did it go? Klein wasn't showing off the whole time, was he?"

"Nah, he let me do most of the work, actually. I can see why people follow him as a leader."

Lizbeth smiles. "So, want me to fix up your sword?"

I open my inventory. "Let's see, I don't think it went down that much... Yeah, it's still at 94%" I blink. "Oh yeah, I can pay you back. I earned enough." I initiate a trade.

She quickly cancels it. "Let's do this back at my place, alright? It's getting kind of dark out."

I shrug. No reason not to, I guess.

Ever since getting a job, she has been living outside the city limits, in a mill house with a waterwheel. It's great property for a blacksmith, especially since the waterwheel can help with the work a bit.

She invites me inside and I glance at the one handed swords as I walk past. "So, you getting a lot of business?"

She shakes her head. "I've been getting lots of durability fixing requests, but new weapons aren't needed right now. The army is my main customer now." She twirls around. "So, you said you could pay me? I don't remember naming a price."

I scratch my head. "I meant I could pay the market value of the sword. According to my family's standards, I'm already rich."

"Ah, such is the life of those who try to get themselves killed or a regular basis."

I open the trade window again. This time she lets me transfer the money over, as well as the sword, which insisted on honing.

"Don't go anywhere, I'll fix this up while you watch."

She leads me back to the work area, and starts asking questions as she pulls out her gear.

"So, what level did you get to?"

"I got to level four. The queen spider gave me a whole level by itself."

"Get any good gear?"

I pick through my inventory. "Yeah, I got some greaves, a vastly inferior sword (she smiles) and a pair of boots."

For some reason, I decided to hide the last item I had gotten.

"Cool. So, no sheath or anything?"

"Huh. No, I think I'll be ordering a few more things from you before I leave again."

She smiles and lifts my sword up. "Done! Back to 100%. So... Well, that sword was supposed to be your birthday present, but since you paid for it, I'll let you have your pick of something else from my shop, ok?"

I take the sword back. "Do you have a black sheath? I think it would look good with the sword."

"Yeah, it would. Hmm..." She pulls open her inventory and flicks through a few menus. "How's this?" she says as a black leather longsword sheath appears. I carefully slide the blade of Black Ice into the sheath and it fits perfectly.

"Looks great. Thanks, for both the sword and the sheath."

She smiles. "Come back any time you need a new weapon, or need that one sharpened, ok?"

I nod. I was about to respond, but a message window pops up.

"Kirito, are you alright? We expected you back by now. Kaguya."

"Ah, mom and dad want to know if I'm alright. I need to message them back for a minute."

She nods and starts putting her gear back.

"I'm good, cleared mini-dungeon. Now at Lizbeth's, get sword repaired."

The next message come back with astonishing speed. "Come home now!"

I blink. "Fine, let me say goodbye to Lizbeth first, then I'll be right home."

No more messages come.

I turn to Lizbeth. "Parents want me home."

She nods, slightly dejectedly. "Yeah, figures. Come see me again tomorrow, ok?"

I grin. "Hey, maybe I don't want to need my sword sharpened again tomorrow. That would mean I've been using it too much, right?"

Something I said made her eyes cross and a blush appear on her cheeks. "Uh, r-right. So, see you when... See you."

"...Yeah. Take care."

As I leave her shop behind, I shake my head. "Girls make no sense."

It was starting to get dark, with the sun just below the edge of the disk. It would still be light on the lower most floors.

I walk along the path, drawing my sword. Not that there is a lot of monsters on this level, but... There are some rumors of some orange players recently.

Orange players are criminals. Thieves, mostly. Sometime players who roughed up other players too much, inside or outside a city's safe zone. Murderers got a red tag. Regular players are green, which is default. Orange tags eventually went away, depending on the severity of the crime, but red tags are permanent.

Soon I can hear voices. I round a corner of the path and see a girl with chestnut hair and red and white cloth armor warily looking at a group of three green-tagged men. I stop just behind the bushes and watch.

"Look, I said, I'm going home. Please get out of my way, now."

The girl has a nice, light voice, but still commanding. Suddenly, I recognize her armor as that of the Knights of the Blood Oath. The KoB are the best guild around.

That means the girl must be really powerful, to be in that guild.

I continue to sit behind my bush as the lead guy advances on her. "Don't want to."

"Yeah, I don't want to. I'd rather play with you a bit." A second guy licks his lips, which sends shudders down the girl.

She puts her hand to her hip and draws a rapier, and levels it at the guys. "I'll ask one more time-"

There is a sharp clang as the girl's sword goes flying through the air in my direction. The lead thug smirks as he withdraws his sword. "Right. Let's get her."

"Hey!" I yell.

The three men turn towards to me, still blocking the girl into the corner.

"What's you guys' deal? She's a member of the KoB!"

They laugh. "If she was, she wouldn't have lost to the likes of us, huh?" the leader sneers.

I lean down to pick up the girl's sword, intending to toss it back to her. Instead, one of the guys takes the moment to charge me.

I instantly knew what he was doing. If you have a sword in your hand, you can use sword skills. If you have two, you can't, because the skills assume you have only a single sword. Since I picked up the girl's rapier, I suddenly lost access to my best moves, and this guy knew it.

Well, that's what should have happened. Instead, I draw back into a stance and hold both the now glowing swords in front of me. The attacker skids to a stop.

"Huh? What's-"

Thats as far as he got before I lunged. My first strike disarmed the man, and the second pierced him, sending his health into the yellow. I continue running through the gap the man had left before the other two had a chance to shore it up. I stop next tot the girl and hand her her sword back.

"Don't lose it again, ok?" I say playfully.

Her ash white face nods.

I face the three thugs, one of which is in the process of picking up his sword.

"So, going to leave us alone? Your odds just halved."

The leader smirks. "So, you're an orange too? Why don't you join us in our little fun?"

"I'm not an orange-" I blink. "Oh, shit." My HP bar has an orange tag under the status window, which was normally green until now.

He smiles nastily. "So, what do you say?"

"No need to hold back then, at least short of murder." I shrug. "Thanks for pointing that out."

I brandish my sword and rush the three. The two subordinates take a step back as the leader heads in for a swing, glowing with a sword skill. I let the blow slide along the edge of the sword, sending a shower of sparks over the ground and slipped under his guard and decked him with my free hand.

Ah, maybe I should increase my unarmed?

He reels back, but I can tell it wasn't that much of a blow. His subordinates though, they look a little worried.

I ready my sword again, and wait for my sword skill to regenerate. The thug slowly climbs to his feet. "Kid, you just ended up in a world of hurt."

I smirk, and I toss the teleport crystal to the girl. "Take this back home. I'll hold them off while it takes effect."

She looks at the crystal, then back at me. "Ok."

I stand guard as the teleportation takes effect. The thugs watch as their prey disappears.

"Aw, you ruined our fun." The leader snarls. "I'm just going to have to take all of your stuff instead."

His sword glows again, and I barely block the strike. I ram my shoulder into him, and he takes a step backwards to get his balance back. I swing my sword around and strike, watching his health bar sink deep into the red. He stumbles backwards and trips over a pebble.

Jeez, if I'm not careful, I'll end up killing them.

I look at the other two thugs, who look at each other and then run away. I look at the guy who is lying on the ground.

"I'd offer you a healing potion, but I don't have one. So, instead, I'm going to march you right to the city, and you better not try anything."

I wait for him to get to his feet before ordering him to march. He seems to have lost all his fight, and is willing heading to the city on my swordtip.

Another message appears in the corner of my eye. Sorry, mom,must I'm kind of in a situation here.

Then another message. Then a third. And then a fourth. What was going on?

After five more messages come in, and five more minutes pass, I catch sight of the wall surrounding Rockfort. I march the thug right up to the gate. Two army members narrow their eyes as we approach.

"Hey! Who goes there?"

"Kirito. I found this guy accosting a woman on the path between this gate and the blacksmith's shop. I stopped-"

"He mugged me!" the man cries. "I don't know anything about any women!"

Wait, what? "Hey! I saved you! If I'd have left you in that state, you'd be dead!" I look at the guards. They both have suspicious looks on their faces.

The man gets on his knees. "Look! He's orange! I'm green! It's obvious who's lying!"

Uh-oh. The two guards level their weapons at me.

"Sir, we're going to need you to come answer some questions."


	2. Chapter 2: The Wall

I decided that I'd update this every 6000 words I write. By that standard, this chapter is a little long, but... Hey, I don't hear anyone complaining.

On to the the wordy things!

* * *

"So, who is the girl?"

"Member of the KoB, long chestnut hair. Don't know her name."

"And, who were the thugs?"

I shrug. "Just people like the guy I brought in. The other two ran when I reduced the one I caught's health into the red zone."

"Uh-huh." The army woman I was talking to looks back down at her notes. "You have absolutely nobody to corroborate your story, then?"

I let my shoulders slump. "No, unless you can find that girl."

The army woman bites her lip. "No such KoB member exists, I'm sorry to say. She might've been wearing the same colors, but she isn't a Clearer, if she even exists."

I let my head hit the table.

"So, that means I'm going to have to go to jail."

She nods.

"Damn."

She nods again. "So, supposing your story is accurate, how come the girl didn't come with you?"

"I gave her my teleport crystal-"

I stop once I see the look of disbelief on her face. "It's true." I mutter. "She teleported to Rockport, in any case."

She looks down at her papers again. "So, how were you able to get to this girl when she was surrounded?"

"I... I'm about to dig myself a deeper hole. Her rapier was knocked out of her hands, so I went to toss it back to her, but one of the thugs rushed me since I had both hands full."

"And you weren't hit by him?"

"...No. I was able to knock his sword aside and slash at him, getting behind him and into the area with the girl."

She looks back at her notes. "Today is your update, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"How were you able to defeat even a single one of those men?"

I drop my head into my hands. "I'm skilled with my sword. I have all my points in fighting skills. I went through the spider caves on floor five with the Clearer Klein before-"

She lets the papers drop. "Are you trying to make your own situation worse? If you are found lying at this point, you will be subject to charges of slander, along with assault and attempted robbery. I suggest you tell only the truth."

I shrug. "I am. It's not easy to believe I guess, but if you ask Klein, Lizbeth the blacksmith, and my parents, they'll all corroborate my story."

She flips through her notes, shuffling them back into a neat pile. "This man you brought in on sword tip, have you met him before?"

"No."

Suddenly the door bursts open. There, Klein and Lizbeth stand, puffing.

"Kirito!" Lizbeth yells, and tackles me out of my chair. My cuffed hand doesn't follow, and it strains as the rest of my body is pushed out of my chair.

"Ow! Jeez, Liz, that hurt."

"Sorry. How the hell did you manage to get an orange mark on your way home from my house!" She demands.

I point a shaky finger at the army woman. "Ask her."

"He supposedly saw a group of thugs attacking a girl, have her his only teleport crystal, and fought off all but one of the men, the last of which he brought here at swordpoint."

Liz smacks the back of my head. "Idiot."

"Hey! She looked like she needed help!"

"Yeah, but you didn't need to get an orange tag over it!"

Klein sighs. "Well, I'm just glad you didn't die." He turns to the woman. "I'm Klein, leader of the Clearing guild-"

"What, he wasn't lying about that? You took a freshly upgraded kid into the floor five rat caves?"

"No, spider caves." He looks at me. "Did you lie to her? Cause that was the stupidest-"

She raises a hand. "It was a test. He said spider caves as well. Well then."

Klein sighs. "Oh yeah, Lizbeth? I'm going to need that Ziatchi back ASAP. My backup is almost worn out."

She nods.

Klein turns to me with a mischievous grin. "So, this girl, was she hot?"

"Uh-"

"Oh come on! He was just rescuing someone! It's not because she was pretty... Right?"

"Uhm-"

"Hello?"

We all turn as a new face arrives at the door.

"Hello, sir. Just interrogating this prisoner before his... backup showed." The army woman says.

The man nods and gestures for her to leave. She salutes and steps out.

"So, I hear you rescued someone under unusual circumstances." He steeples his fingers. "Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Thinker. I'm the commander of the army. I'm here because... Well, I received an odd message less than thirty minutes ago. The leader of the KoB, Heathcliff, said that one of his new members was attacked on floor ten, but said she was rescued by a random boy walking around. Now, I was told she said he turned orange to save her. Your story also came up since you were making such outrageous claims, and I put two and two together. Now, I've called that girl, one Asuna, to come down and testify. If your stories match up, you may have a reduced sentence."

"R-Reduced? But if he's innocent-"

"He's still orange."

The room falls silent.

I break the silence. "Yeah, I guess I did almost kill the guy, even if it was an accident. That's fair."

Thinker nods. "Now, we don't normally advertise this, but instead of going to prison for an allotted amount of time, you have the option of joining the guard for the same period of time. It's the lightest punishment we offer, and it's only valid to those who turned orange under odd circumstances. I would suggest taking that route if you can."

He stands up. "I'm going down to meet Asuna. I'll send someone up to inform you of my decision once I've heard her out."

He lifts a hand goodbye before walking out the door.

"Well, it could be worse."

Lizbeth decks me again, this time generating a warning. "You almost killed him? What were you thinking!"

I raise my free hand in defense. "I wasn't even using a sword skill! I just wanted to cut him to get him to back off. I was already orange anyway, so I didn't think it would hurt!"

The door opens again. My parents come in with sad looks on their faces.

"Kirito!" dad's voice is sharp. "What did you do?"

I went through the whole story, excluding the twin swords part. I wanted to keep that secret, like that item-

"So, you were protecting the weak?" Dad says doubtfully.

"It does fit his personality..." Klein says.

Dad shakes his head. "Well, after the orange goes away, you can come back. Until then, we can't afford to be known to serve orange players." He looks up with tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry."

I raise my free hand again. "No problem. I'm going to have to go to prison or work on the wall no matter the outcome, so it shouldn't be a problem."

He nods and looks down at his feet.

The silence stretches, only broken by the clinking of my cuffs as I shift around.

Suddenly, the door bangs open, startling all of us and causing four weapons to draw.

Who knew my parents actually had combat reflexes?

There, the girl I had saved, Asuna, is standing. She has tears in her eyes. "Th-thank you for saving me!" She bows in a traditional way before straightening up. "Thinker told me to tell you that he believes your story, and is going to look into it further, but for now, you can head home with your family. He said to come back tomorrow for reassignment." She sniffs back some tears.

"Uh... That's great! But, I don't want to hurt my dad's business..."

Liz raises a hand. "I can take him in for tonight."

Judging by the looks from my parents, that was a no.

Klein shrugs. "I might be able to take him in for a night."

"Oh, would you?" Mom almost has sparkles in her eyes.

Klein smirks. "Sure... Hey, Asuna, was it? Did Thinker give you a key?"

She blinks, then scrambles to open her menu, eventually pulling out a silver key. She hands it to Klein, who turns and releases me from the table. I rub my wrist.

"So, what happens to my items?" I ask the room.

"Thinker said you could take back everything but your weapons." Asuna says. I smile at her, which makes her blush.

"Thanks for proving my explanation. I guess it was pretty stupid to walk up to the gate with an orange marker."

She nods. "I'm sorry I cause you all this trouble."

I shrug. "I'll live."

With that, my parents and Lizbeth leave. Klein starts walking through Rockfort towards the the central platform. Before we had even cleared a block he stopped.

"You can come out now." He calls.

Asuna steps into the light. "Um... I was-"

"You don't need to lie. I'm not his dad or even family. Just a friend."

She steps closer again. "Um, well, I was thinking..." She hesitates. "I'm a pretty good cook, so would you like to come over to my place to get something to eat?"

Klein looks down at me. I look back. "Aren't I under house arrest or something?"

He shrugs. "I heard free to go for the night. I was just the most convenient option."

I nod. "Uh, thanks, but-"

Klein suddenly gets a broad grin and shoves me down. Then he pulls out a teleport crystal (is he made of the things?) and says "Teleport, Anaheim!"

He disappears in a cloud of particles.

"Uh..." I look back at Asuna. "I guess I'm taking you up on your offer."

Only half her face smiles, as if it's painful. "Yeah. Alright."

She turns and starts walking towards the central teleport pad again. Along the way, she strikes up a conversation.

"We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Asuna."

"Kirito."

"Do you always go around saving damsels in distress?"

"Well, I just updated today, so, I guess I can say I've saved one damsel a day for my entire career, averaged." I grin.

She smiles slightly. "Ah. I heard from Thinker that you're an abnormal guy, at least in terms of stats."

"Yeah, I've specced into swords and swords only. It came in handy, right?"

She nods a bit more enthusiastically. "Yeah. Is that where you got your dual blade skill from?"

...Ah. "So you noticed?"

"Yes! It was so amazing! I never thought anyone could do that!"

"To be honest, I just wasn't thinking. I didn't know it was going to work out that way either." I roll my shoulders. "You know, your Rapier is very nice."

"Thanks!" She blushes. "It's my dad's. He gave it to me when he got a new service weapon that was more practical for his job."

I raise an eyebrow. "Is he a Clearer?"

She shakes her head. "He's on the wall."

"Huh."

We walk on in silence until we reach the teleporter pad. She grabs my hand and takes a deep breath. "Teleport, Anaheim!"

Instantly, we end up on floor twelve. Asuna lets go of my hand and points down the road. "I live down here. My father lives close by, but he's on duty until midnight."

She starts walking, and I follow a pace behind.

"I, uh, really hope I'm not intruding-"

"No! It's fine. You did save me after all..." She walks up to a door and opens it.

Inside- well, it's not luxurious, but it wasn't cheap furnishings either. She turns to me.

"Anything in particular you'd like?"

"N-Not really. Anything you think will taste good."

She pauses to think, then heads for the kitchen. I look around the room again, and notice something very odd.

It looks like this house isn't used much. There's a thin layer of dust that gathers after a month of inactivity. I look back to see Asuna still cooking.

I press the button that deletes the dust and watch as everything sparkles.

"Thanks."

I turn around to see Asuna blushing. "I haven't had much time to come home for a while. If I had known-"

"Then you wouldn't have been out all alone."

She hesitates then nods. "Yeah." then she brightens. "Um, the stew's done!"

She points to a big pot in the center of the table.

It takes a while to eat. The food is so good that it's hard not to inhale it, but I carefully make sure to actually chew before swallowing so as to savor the taste.

After the plates are cleared, Asuna sits down across from me.

I cough. "I don't suppose you know where Klein lives?"

"Klein's the guy who you were going to board with?"

I nod.

"No, sorry. I mean, if you want, you can sleep here tonight."

The last five words drag into silence. "Um, I didn't catch that."

"If you need a place, you can sleep here." She keeps her head low, but I could guess she's blushing.

"I... Thanks, but I wouldn't want to impose-"

She suddenly stands up. "You. Here." He commanding voice from before was back.

It takes me a second to recover. "Yeah, sure. Here's good."

She sits back down. "Um, so..."

"I'll sleep on your couch. It looks comfy." I say nonchalantly. "So, thanks for dinner, and a place to sleep."

She nods. "If you need anything, I'll be in my room."

She gets up and goes to the only door inside the house, opens it and closes it behind her.

"Like I'd go anywhere near a girls room without permission." I mumble, before unequipping my clothes and putting on some softer ones. It wouldn't do for her to see me in my underwear.

I set my alarm for 8:00, and close my eyes.

* * *

Asuna is an early riser. Also, she forgets things in the morning. Thus, I was woken up by a shoe hitting my forehead at around 7:27 am.

"Ahg! What was that for?"

I check above my head, but no warning appears.

"Oh, sorry! I thought... I don't know. Some people say people can get into houses uninvited, and I guess I overreacted..."

I shake my head. "Eh. No problem." I stretch. "I need to show up to prison today. Thanks for the meal, it was delicious."

She smiles, genuinely. "No problem!" She drags her foot on the ground. "If you do end up working the walls, come visit, okay?"

I hesitate. "Aren't you worried about being seen with an orange player?"

"No, I can just explain you saved me if they ask."

I shrug. "Sure then. See you around."

She returns the pleasantry and closes the door. I turn and head for the central platform, intending to head straight for the floor ten cell block.

The next few hours were hectic. Thinker gave me a position on the wall, I was outfitted with new gear, given my swords back in the same condition a left them in, and hurried back up to the twelfth level.

There, a man with the design of Aincrad on his chest greets me.

"So, you're the new prisoner? You look pretty young."

"Yeah. I updated yesterday." I say as emotionlessly as possible.

He just raises an eyebrow. "It doesn't matter. Follow me."

He takes me on a tour along a good portion of the wall, showing me where the mess hall is, along with the barracks, and finally-

"Here's your post. It's almost time for the watch to switch, so I'm putting you up immediately. If there's any trouble, just yell. People will come running"

I nod. "Thanks for the tour."

The guard below us yells something unintelligible. I peer over the edge to see a man trapped on a narrow ledge that was the post with two small pig things snapping at him. He starts scrambling up the ladder to get away from them.

"Looks like you've already got your work cut out for you, huh?" The man with the Aincrad symbol slaps me on the back.

"Yeah."

As soon as the other guard (who looks weaker than I did when I was eight) finishes climbing the ladder, I grab the top rung and swiftly descend.

My sword is drawn before I touch down and it only takes two swipes to dispatch the creatures. I look up to se the soldier that was on duty staring back down with wide eyes.

"M-make sure you stay close to the wall!" He calls in a tremulous voice.

"What? Can't hear you!" I yell as I jump off the ledge and onto the grass. He says something else, but it is lost to the wind. I draw my inferior sword that I got as a drop and wait. Something pokes its head out of a bush, and before it can squeal, it's already been reduced to prismatic shards.

The sounds of battle attract attention. Soon, I can see creatures hiding in the bushes all around me. Despite myself, I grin. "So, I can still level while serving time. Excellent."

I stab the nearest bush to hear a shattering sound and see my XP bar go up a fraction.

"Alright, who's next?" I call.

For the next eight hours (one shift) I battled my heart out. I completely wore down my dropped sword until it burst, then had to switch to my Black Ice. I gained another five levels, bringing me to level 9. The only difficulty came when it was time to switch out. Black Ice is at 38% durability, my muscles are starting to get tired, and the monsters didn't seem to be stopping. The bell rings to switch, but I'm still fighting, slowly backing up towards the wall. These things may not be all that powerful on their own, but if you drop your guard against a horde of them, your survival is far from guaranteed.

The creatures back off the closer I get to the wall, until only a few brave ones follow me, and are quickly dispatched, leaving me free to scale the wall.

As soon as I crest the edge, I collapse on the ground. I wait for the thunder of blood rushing through my skull to subside, but it quickly gets replaced by... Cheers?

I open my eyes to see a bit of a crowd gathered. In the front row is Asuna and Klein.

"Uh, hi?"

"Hi!" Asuna calls. She has a basket in her hands.

Klein has a wry smile on his face. "You're not supposed to solo floor twelve until you're actually level twelve, you know."

I shrug. "Well, I'm not going with that plan, now am I?" I sheath my sword and pat the shoulder of the man replacing me, who looks even weaker than the one before me.

He gulps before descending the ladder.

"Looks like it. How's your sword doing?"

"38%. I'm not officially allowed to leave the wall, so... Can you get this to Lizbeth?" I check my new items gotten from the corpses of my rampage. "Yeah, I have enough to last me through tomorrow."

The crowd starts to disperse, finding that I wasn't about to go charging back into the fray anytime soon.

Klein shakes his head. "Yeah, sure. I was going to head back down to her shop today anyways." He straightens up. "Once you serve your time, come find me. I seriously want you in Fuurinkazan. You might even make us surpass the KoB!"

He smiles as I hand him the sword.

"I'll think about it. Maybe I'll join the KoB just to tick you off." I grin.

He shakes his head. "See you around." He turns and walks off.

Asuna lifts the basket up. "I made lunch."

I glance at the clock. "It's 8:14 PM."

"I made it for lunch, it's not my fault you were too busy fighting." She sits down on the edge of the wall. "Come on, let's eat. The durability probably isn't too high anymore."

I nod and sit beside her. She hands me a sandwich which I quickly dig into.

"Mmmph! This ish good!"

She bites into her own sandwich. "Mmhmm."

We eat in silence, finishing the sandwiches before they shattered.

"Thanks again for the food."

"You're welcome." She hesitates. "Um, how are you so strong? You just updated, right?"

"I put all my points into one handed swords. I'm very specialized."

She nods. "That's... it must be nice to be effective."

I blink. "Aren't you in KoB? You need to be good to get into that guild!"

She hangs her head. "I'm just the daughter of the second in command. I'm trying to get skilled with a rapier, but it's slow going. It's not like I'm not trying, but it's been a whole year, and you've surpassed me in a day."

I shrug. "You need to party with somebody, and go outside the walls for an hour. I can almost guarantee that you'll be another level or two."

She nods. "I know, I'm just having trouble finding someone who wants to go with me. All of the Knights I'm familiar with are the ones who do the errands, not the fighters."

"That sucks." I look out over the now dark brush surrounding the ground on this level.

"Um, could I team up with you?" She asks with hope in her voice.

"Sure, I guess." I blink. "Wait, do you mean tomorrow, or after I get out of wall duty?"

"Tomorrow. I can bring lunch, and then we'll go out and fight." She says with so much enthusiasm I think she's about to burst.

"Lunch would be nice, but are you sure you can handle yourself out there?"

She sits up and glares at me. "I bet I'm higher level than you!"

I raise an eyebrow. "Really? Then I don't need to help you. You can handle yourself, right?"

Her face puffs up. "Just because I actually wanted to live life a little doesn't make me inferior!"

"Who said you were inferior?"

"Your attitude! You told me you put everything into combat skills, right? So, swords, healing, and agility? Nothing else?"

I nod, my face set into a neutral expression.

"So, you can't cook, you can't sew, you can't repair your own equipment. Most people put at least 200 levels into those just for basic purposes! You are useless outside of battle."

She suddenly claps her hand over her mouth as her cheeks flush red. She sinks back down to sitting position.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so defen-"

I hold up a hand to stop her. "It's your opinion. Sure, I'll help you tomorrow. Bring gear and some healing supplies, if you can get them." My voice is rather colder than it was before. I did save her with those skills, right?

She nods. "S-so, see you tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah."

She stands up and grabs the basket. Her footsteps slowly recede into the darkness, leaving only quiet behind.

I pull out my secret item. It's the perfect time to test it.

I quickly unequip my regular, basic armor and equip my cloak. It's black, with white lines running around the edges. It's called the cloak of shadows, and the description says that it gives the wearer a large boost in stealth. Considering it is an A-class item, I'm assuming it works.

With the cloak now equipped, I pull out my latest dropped sword, which was still only half as powerful as Black Ice, and sheath it across my back. Then I leap off the wall, landing in a thick pile of brush. The guard that replaced me almost screams at the noise, but regains his composure before I felt the need to move. I slowly stand up and start walking towards away from the wall.

Time to kill some more monsters.

It was five AM before I got back. It had gone through four more swords, and my last one was almost gone. I had gone up to level 11 and found a new skill, a strike that let me spin around like a top and slice everything surrounding me. It came in useful twice so far, when I got cornered. Once I was back in my bunk, I passed out for the next six hours, waking up only an hour before I was back on duty.

Oh, right, Asuna. She was waiting by my post (how do people not working here get on top of the wall?) with her picnic basket. She starts out of her thoughts as I approach.

"Oh, Kirito! It's almost time for your watch, so here I am."

"Yeah. Here you are." I scratch the back of my head. "We'll go down to the fields as soon as the other guy comes up."

Asuna sets down the basket. "Let's eat for now."

Mmmmm. Best food ever. Of course, I also liked frog's legs, so maybe you shouldn't ask me.

Uhg. Leveling cooking skill is arduous. I had thirty levels in it before my stats reset, and that took me thirty hours of cooking. I could only guess how long Asuna had spent leveling up her cooking skill to get to this level of proficiency.

Or, I could just ask.

"So, I know it's rude to ask, but what level is your cooking skill?"

She beams. "845!"

Eight hundred and forty five hours that could have been spent training sword skills, all gone. To cooking, no less.

Well, it was a damn tasty sandwich.

"That's... great."

"I got bored when dad was out on raids, so he bought me cookware. I've been cooking food since I was five." She says proudly.

I focused on useful stuff. You know, regeneration, agility, armor, stealth...

"It shows. It's excellent food."

She smiles. We finish our meal and wait for the guy before me to climb up. I peer over the edge to find him asleep.

The clock tower bell bongs and he starts awake.

"Nothing interesting happened last night?" I call down.

His face goes red. "I wasn't sleeping!"

"Didn't say you were. Get back up here so I can start."

The man scrambles up the ladder and practically flies down the stairs into the interior of the wall.

"Where did you get that coat?" Asuna asks.

I look down at myself. I forget to change into my regular guard uniform. "Dungeon."

"It's cool."

I grunt and swing myself out onto the other side of the wall, gripping the first rung of the ladder. I look at her before getting ready to descend. "It's functional. That's what matters."

Then I drop one rung down, disappearing from her sight.

She peers over the edge when I'm about halfway down, and she nervously grabs the rope ladder. Once I reach the ground, I look up to see her still clinging to the rung three steps down.

"Look, if you want to do this, you have to get down here. Otherwise, you're going to be clinging to that spot for eight hours."

She slowly reaches down with a foot and climbs down a rung.

"Okay. I'm going to go hunt monsters now. Come find me when you get down."

She panics and falls off in her hurry to get down. I catch her so she doesn't take any fall damage and set her on her feet.

"Thanks."

"I'm going to expect to be saved twice now. You know, to pay me back?"

She narrows her eyes. "I'm paying you in sandwiches."

I roll my eyes. "Get out your rapier."

She draws the weapon and faces away from the wall.

"Do you know how to actives sword skills?" I ask.

"Yes." She pulls her sword back and stabs it, a white light tracing through the air.

"Good. Let's see if we can find something to attack."

I quickly locate a small pig thing and guide her over to her.

"Now, just attack it. It's not healthy, so no matter what type of strike you do, you should finish it off."

She gulps and prepares a strike, then lunges.

The sound of glass shattering reaches my ears.

Asuna cheers as... Jeez, she leveled from that?

"What level are you, anyways?" I ask.

"Level 2!"

"...Have you not killed anything before?"

"...No?"

I resist the urge to scream. "Fine. I guess it can't be helped. Let me find something else-"

Glass shatters. I look over and see she's stabbed another pig thing. Her character dings again and she smiles. She brings up he inventory and allots the points.

"So, how about this. You continue doing that, and if you need help, shout. I'll be sitting next to the wall."

She nods eagerly.

I keep an eye on her as she quickly starts to level up. She's up to level four in two hours, which barely beats me. I attribute it to starting on level twelve and not five.

About halfway through the watch, Klein literally drops by.

"Here's Black Ice, all shiny and new. Lizbeth almost killed me when I showed her your sword, I think she though I killed you."

I smirk. "As if."

He places a second sword in front of me. "She said you owe her 2500 col for this sword."

"I didn't order another sword."

"She made it after I told her that you almost went through an entire sword in one day. Said, 'You better live long enough to pay it back'."

"Huh." I grab the sword and tuck it away into my inventory.

"So, what's going on?

"Asuna wants to train. I'm her to make sure she doesn't get killed."

Klein bobs his head thoughtfully. "She might need help soon."

I eye the girl who seems stronger than ever. "How do you figure?"

Just as I say that, she falls down. A wild boar is heading in her direction.

"What?" My mouth is hanging open by this point.

"Quick! Save her!" Klein yells.

I grab my sword and draw on the run. It flashes across the pig's body twice before it disappears. I look down at Asuna who is sprawled in the grass. I was expecting curled up, or eyes closed, but I got wide-eyed and smiling.

"So you WERE-"

"Get up."

She eeps and scrambles to her feet.

"I don't care what your reason was, but pretending to fall down is tantamount to suicide."

She looks like she wants to argue, but closes her mouth and hangs her head. "Sorry."

"What level are you now?"

"F-Five."

"Five levels is good for only one day." I stretch. "Go ahead and take a break. I'll finish this watch."

She heads back to the wall dejectedly. I'm not sure why, since it took me a lot longer than this.

"Wait!" I say to the empty air. "She said she was higher level than me before! How could she possibly think that if she was only level 1?"

Alas, my question goes unanswered.

The rest of the watch goes uneventfully. Once the guard comes to relieve me, I wander out and do some more night leveling, getting to level thirteen before deciding to call it a night.

"Well, I'm officially strong enough to solo this floor." I mutter as I buy three loaves of bread and a flask of water. It's only three hours until my watch starts, and I was getting tired.

The bread disappears into my stomach quickly. The hole in stomach fills up.

"No use sleeping now. I'll just go to my watch."

I yawn as I climb the stairs to the top of the wall. There, Asuna greets me.

"Hi! I cooked up the pig meat we got yesterday, and it tastes delicious!" She eagerly pulls out two sandwiches stuffed with meat. "Here!"

I let her deposit the sandwich in my hand. It looks pretty good. I look back at her. "So, did you sharpen your weapon, or is it going to break halfway through through today's exercises?"

Her cheeks pink. She should honestly put on makeup to hide the fact the does that every five minutes.

I open my inventory and toss her the two rapiers I had found last night. "Here, use these until they break."

She stares at the swords. "Why didn't you sell these?"

"Huh?"

"You could just sell them, and you'd be able to afford better gear."

"Don't need it for now. Well, I do owe Lizbeth a lot by now, but I'll pay that back when i'm done on this wall."

She shrugs and tucks one into her inventory. "Let's get started?"

"Yeah." I climb down first and watch bemusedly as she slowly scrambles down the ladder.

Since I actually have a decent weapon on me, I go out there and fight with Asuna. It results in very little XP gained for me, and Asuna only went up to level eight, despite fighting all day.

Soon, I settle into a pattern. Fight all night, sleep for an hour or two, fight in the field with Asuna, send my swords out to be repaired, repeat.

That pattern continues until the fifteenth da of my work. I was trying to buy another health potion for my reserves, but an error popped up that I had too much stuff.

"Er, I'll be back later." I apologize to the shopkeeper, who only sells healing supplies.

He just looks stunned. "Ah never seen a guy wit a full inventory before!"

I shrug and walk off. On a whim I message mom.

"Hey, mom. Can you meet me somewhere? I need to sell off a lot of stuff."

She replies back after a few minutes. "Sure, meet at twelfth gate."

I get up and trudge to the center of the city. She teleports in as I approach. She gives me a bone crushing hug.

"Hi, mom. How's business?"

"Good. Once it got around that not only did our son turn orange to save a girl, but also is making a show of fighting past the wall, people have been coming to the shop."

"Glad to help." I open a trade window. She watches as I pile in all the meat, carcasses, and random weapons and armor that I don't use into her inventory.

She types in a number that, upon further inspection, was half the market value of those items.

"Mom... Are you really going to undercut me that much?"

She blinks. "Oh! Sorry, force of habit." She erases the number and puts it at 90% trade value. I click accept.

She smiles. "So, how's fighting?"

"It's fighting. I'm level 18 now, but it's slow going since there's not much that's actually difficult on this floor. At least, not near enough to the wall to matter."

"Klein says you've been training with a girl, that Asuna."

"She lives on this level. In exchange for sandwiches, I help her level. She's level 9, but since she puts points into other things, she's still not able to solo yet."

Mom shakes her head. "You know, you're on the list of top 100 players now."

I raise an eyebrow. "Wow. That's... What is everyone else doing? It took me less than three weeks to get to this point!"

Mom smiles. "It's not like everyone else is willing to risk their lives on the front line like you are."

I roll my eyes.

Suddenly her voice gets sharper. "Wait, you said Asuna lives on this floor?"

I nod.

"You better not be sleeping with her."

"Mom! I'm sleeping in the barracks, but why on earth would you think that!"

We argue for a few minutes until mom gets a message. "Oh, need to get back to the shop."

I quickly divide my money into three equal portions. "Here, one for you and one for Lizbeth. I really hope it covers what I owe her up to now." I tuck the third portion into my pouch for medical potions.

"I'll get it to her." She gives me a hug. "Don't get in any more trouble, okay?"

"Not planning on it."

She steps back onto the teleport pad and disappears. I head back to the potions shop 11000 col richer, and over 300 lbs lighter. Geez, good thing I don't actually have to carry that much around on my back.

I buy a few potions, and also a healing crystal. I'd never used one before, and never needed one, but it never hurt to be prepared.

I still had an hour to kill before I was due on the wall.

I start randomly clicking through my menu, trying to see what changes had been made. I never haven't gotten a good chance to look at it yet.

"let's see... Nothing new, nothing new... I'm don't know what ping is... huh?"

There's a button hidden by a scroll bar on my main menu. It reads "log out," and has no description. Pressing it only asks if I'm sure, and I'm really not sure. I don't even know what it does! I'm not a lumberjack or a woodworker, so it probably doesn't produce a log-

"Kirito!"

I look up to find Asuna with her basket.

I look at the corner of my vision. "It's only 11:30. I'm not due on the wall yet."

She bobs her head to the side in agreement. "Well, I wanted to see you."

"... About what?"

She shrugs. "No reason."

She sets the basket down on the table I'm sitting at. Okay, what's going on? I'm getting some odd readings off of her body language.

"Maybe you could help me then? I can't figure out what this button does." I press the button that lets people look at my screen.

She steps up behind me. "What is it?"

"Log out."

"W-what?" She takes two steps back.

"Log out. I can't figure out what it does... Asuna?"

She's bright red, like, PK marker red. "W-well, I guess girls have ethics settings and guys have log out-"

"Ahg! No! Not that! It's... It's not that!" I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think I was redder than she was at that point.

"Oh, ok." She blinks. "Wait, how would you know?"

"...I saw ethics in my settings elsewhere."

She sighs. "Ok. So, no indecency laws broken."

My right eye twitches. "Right."

We sit in silence. I see the red return to her cheeks twice in the intermittent time.

My clock rings that it's currently 11:45 AM.

"Eh, forget it. We'll deal with it later. Ready to go level up?"

She bounces out of her seat. "Yeah!"

It wasn't until 7:30 PM, almost the end of my shift, that things turned bad.

* * *

Asuna had become a lot more graceful as she practiced, now gliding along, almost dancing between her foes. I had used a special item to summon monsters, seeing as usually we ran out once they all got wiser and decided to stay out of our way.

That bait box had a weird description. Despite the fact no one even uses them or makes them anymore, this one still was at full durability. I released it, and monsters swarmed us. I still wasn't in any danger, but Asuna went into the yellow twice.

That was before the massive, level 21 scorpion suddenly burst out of the ground.

"Asuna, get away, up the wall. I'll hold it off, and you get some Clearers. I don't care how."

"But, Kirito, you can't fight that alone!"

I glance at my level. 19. "I'll be fine."

I unsheath Black Ice, newly repaired and my backup sword, which is almost dead.

"Kirito, you are not allowed to die! Got it?"

"Wasn't planning to." I slide into a stance.

I wait for the sound of her yelling to recede. "So, giant scorpion, huh?" I smirk. "Let's dance."

I charge my swords, and the scorpion lowers its tail and rushes me in retaliation. I use Black Ice to deflect its claw and stab my other sword into its face. It screeches and jerks away, taking my backup sword with it.

Okay, back to one handed.

Interestingly, it keeps scraping at the sword with its claw, driving the sword deeper, and causing more damage. Well. That's one tactic I never thought of.

I ready into a single handed stance. The scorpion is still thrashing around, it's health bar-

Oh shit! It has two health bars! The first one is in the red, but the other is still full!

Suddenly, the scorpion calms down. I hear the faint tinkling of glass as my backup sword looses all of its durability.

"Damn it. Alright, monster. You're going to pay for breaking my sword."

As if in response, the massive tail strikes out at me. I swing my sword up and around, dodging to the side and slicing the tip off. Instead of disappearing, the stinger remains. The scorpion backs off though, and I get a chance to recover my bearings.

It's second bar is already half down? This thing is weak!

I pull back into a stance, preparing for a charge. The scorpion stops it's wailing and starts skittering sideways. I track it and release my sword skill on it before it can get out of my range. It only takes two more strikes to incapacitate and kill, sending a shower of prisms into the air.

"Heh. If all level 21's are that easy, I have a few floors I need to clear."

A player pops into my radar range, and I spin around just in time to catch a face full of Asuna.

"Mmmph!"

"Ah! Sorry... I brought Clearers!"

She gets off of me and I get a good view of guild Fuurinkazan, smirking at me down to a man.

"Hey Kirito. How was your first encounter with a Death scorp?"

"Death scorp?"

"Yeah." He frowns. "You're lucky it didn't hit you with it's stinger. It's got a powerful paralysis. We've only fought one once before, and we almost got wiped!"

I look at the spot that it had disappeared from. "Um."

He nods. "I'm astonished you beat it. I was prepared to find you half eaten and paralyzed, having only taken down one of its health bars."

I smirk.

Asuna coughs. "I'm glad you're alright. Looks like I won't be needing this, then." She tucks a green crystal into her inventory.

The bell rings, signaling the end of my shift. I yawn.

Klein claps a hand down on my shoulder. "So, did you get anything from it?"

I pinch my fingers together and swipe downwards. Several new items pop not my inventory.

"Let's see. Poison sack times 8, scorpion hide times 5, a sword called Stinger, and... That's it."

Klein smiles. "Too bad. If you had gotten a ring, I know a few thousand people who'd pay one hell of a lot for it."

No kidding. I imagine a ring of resurrection would come in handy. Not that I had one. *cough*

"Anyway, go get some sleep. You've earned it."

I nod. "See you around."

Asuna climbs the wall right after me, and continues to follow me until I get tot the staircase leading down.

"Do you need something?" I ask as I turn around.

"No, just wanted to say goodnight."

I blink a few times. "Goodnight."

She hesitates, but nods. "Goodnight. See you tomorrow."


	3. Chapter 3: Goop of the Blue Variety

MOAR WURDS! Yay! I'm pretty sure this is my most popular Fic so far, so I'm especially motivated to work on it!

I hope you enjoy!

* * *

After saying goodnight to Asuna, I descend the steps into the barracks. Still as dingy as ever. I slump into my cot and stare at the ceiling. It's kind of worn, but at least it keeps the rain off.

Not that it ever rains on this floor.

"Well... I guess I should get some sleep."

Three hours later, I had memorized the cracks in the ceiling. My clock was ticking up slower than ever.

To stave off boredom, I start to flip through my menus-

Oh, that's right. I forgot to find out what log out does. At least, in here I'm not likely to get arrested for losing my pants.

I press the button, and press confirm.

The world fades away, and I slowly come to realize what happened as things drift into focus.

I was back in the blue goop.

Outside, the warning sound comes again.

I can hear the buzzing of voices again, and this time I strain to hear the words.

"... of his own accord! It's not supposed to happen!"

"Relax, it's just a bug. We'll put him back under and-"

"He's allergic! It almost killed him last time!"

Wait, I haven't been anywhere close to death! ...Maybe they aren't talking about me?

"Then what are we going to do?"

Silence.

"Let's just let him sit in there for a while. As long as he doesn't mess around with his life support again, we can patch his client and let him back into the simulation."

They lost me at life support.

I try to open my menu again, but it still doesn't want to open. The men have stopped talking, so I let my mind wander.

Huh, several other things are missing aside from my menu. No health bar, no XP bar, no markers, no clock... Nothing that's not physical.

Not having a health bar is seriously starting to freak me out.

What if I'm dead? That would suck. I promised Asuna... Um, why am I thinking about her? Anyway, being dead would suck.

"Aaahhhughughuh." Oops. Forgot about the goop.

A shape appears, casting a shadow on the haze of blue.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but we're working to send you back. I don't know what happened to eject you, but it's gonna be fixed. Don't mess around with your life support, ok?"

"Glah"

The shadow starts. "Oh, uh, good. No movement."

I return to my thoughts, a lot more bored than when I entered this hell. Nothing special, just random, bored out of your mind thoughts. Seriously. I couldn't even compare weapon stats, since my menu seems to be malfunctioning,

It feels like an eternity before my vision goes blank and I open my eyes to the cracked ceiling of the wall barracks.

I look around. Nobody else is in the room, and it doesn't look like I've been gone more than a few hours.

"What the hell? Was that a dream?"

I check my menu. Yeah, there's still a log out command.

In the upper corner of my vision, a purple icon starts flashing. It looks an awful lot like a message icon, but doesn't have the sound attached to it.

I open it without getting up. A wall of text opens up, and I unconsciously start to read it out loud.

"Admin: Sorry for any inconvenience in your adventures. We are working to resolve your issue as fast as possible.

"Cardinal 2.0 is not supposed to allow logging out as a design feature. While the mechanic is still enabled for admins, players shouldn't be able too do so.

"Please refrain from accessing this option while we work on removing it."

A little below that extremely formal and confusing message, a second message is displayed.

"If you log out again, we might be forced to lock you out of your avatar for a while, and you can spend lots of time in a tub full of gel."

It is signed "Kayaba Akihiko."

Someone who uses their given name to send messages? That's...

That's a pretty good way to stay anonymous, actually. I wouldn't know who this guy is, even if I passed him on the street. It could even be someone I know, like Klein.

Ok, maybe not Klein. But still!

I yawn and get out of bed. My clock reads three AM. Not a lot of people are awake at this time anymore.

I walk up the stairs to the wall and sit with my legs dangling off the side. It's nice not to have someone's eyes on you all the time, just for moments like this.

"Heh. It's almost like I'm back on the tenth floor." I flop backwards and stare up at the roof of floor 12, which is the floor of level 13. It used to be inhabited, but the monsters drove everyone out... Three years ago? It might be four now. The official abandonment order was issued some time before my twelfth birthday...

From below me, the guard yells.

"Ah! H-Help!"

I peek over the edge to see-

Holy shit! Two of those death scorpions!

I leap off the wall, opening my menu midair and drawing both Black Ice and Stinger. Stinger looks almost like its made of wood, tapering off into a point. It take me a second to recognize it as a withered version of the poison sack from the scorpion.

A window opens up on my left. Blah blah blah paralysis blah-

Paralasys? I got a sword that causes paralysis?

Awesome!

All of this occurred in the three seconds I was in the air. I close the side menu and focus on the two enemies below me. I point both swords downwards and rear them back, both glowing with a blue light as I activate a sword skill.

The two blades go straight through the scorpion, and an unearthly screech comes out of the creature.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the late shift guy cowering on his little ledge, his pathetic excuse for a sword held in front of him.

The scorpion I have landed on has it's first health bar retreat to zero and it's second to halfway. The real good part though is that a small zigzag appears on the health bar. That means that it's paralyzed.

I yank my swords out of the twitching creature and leap off of it's back. It remains where it is, twitching and hissing. Its tail still moves though, so I take the time to swing my swords through it, lopping the large appendage off as I scream by towards the other scorpion.

The night guardsman, to his credit, has made contact with his sword. However, the scorpion's armor is thick enough and it's level high enough that he was doing exactly nothing to it.

I'm pretty fast, probably one of the fastest people out there because of my power leveling. I'm still not fast enough, though.

The tail stabs downwards and gets the guard through the chest. He is slowly raised into the air, impaled on the end of the stinger. His health immediately drops into the red and he drops his sword.

These scorpions, their tails are their strong points. Cut them off, and their difficulty drops significantly. I make a small adjustment to my aim and swing at the tail with my sword skill. The first blade, Black Ice, makes contact and slices a large gouge in the appendage. The second strike, much to my horror, never comes. The sword Stinger breaks into a million shards as it comes into contact with the armor on the tail. The shattering sound is quickly accompanied by the sound of me tumbling through the low brush. The sudden lack of resistance had thrown off my balance.

By the time I got to my feet again, the scorpion was turning around to face my position, the guard still impaled on the end of the stinger. His health bar is almost completely empty, and I notice that he has a paralyzed symbol on the bar.

"Damn scorpion. I'm not going to let you kill him!" I pull another blade out of my inventory as fast as I can. Huh. Another sting.

"One shot, then." I sink back into my charge stance, and both of my swords glow blue.

With a feral yell, I charge the creature.

It attempts to grab me with its claws, but I duck under the massive chitin arms and stab both swords straight up through its stomach. It gives off a pitiful wail as it collapses into a shower of sparkling pieces.

The guard collapses on the ground and I rush over to him, already pulling out a healing crystal. His health is... I can see a tiny little dot in the corner, and that's it. I jam the crystal against his chest and watch as the bar fills up well into the green zone.

I huff out a sigh of relief.

The guard is still paralyzed, but he'll live.

"Aauuuuuuhgghhh!"

My ribs make a snapping sound as a powerful chitin claw closes around my torso. I turn my head around to see the first scorpion with just a little health left, leaking blue liquid. I'm not sure if scorpions feel emotion, but this one is angry.

It's claw clamps tighter and my health starts to drain. My battle healing isn't keeping up with the sheer pressure of the edges of the claw.

The guard's eyes widen, but he ain't able to move. I can see his hand twitching as he struggles to do something.

I reach into my pouch, which was thankfully just below the claw. I draw a green crystal from it and toss it to the guard on the ground.

The pressure on my chest- it might cut me in half before it drains my health!

The guard struggles to his feet as the effects of the crystal reverse the poison.

My health bar slips below half, putting my in the yellow zone.

I look back at the guard. "Please... Help..."

The guard turns and scales the ladder up the wall in record time.

My world flips upside down. He... Abandoned me to die. After I saved him.

The claw increases its pressure again, and I can feel the serrated edges through my light armor. I slash Black Ice at the limb connecting the claw to the body, but I can't get a good angle on it from my position. My health shrinks down even lower. Even with all of my might, the claw won't budge.

I look back up at the ceiling of this floor. There's supposed to be a hundred floors. I wanted to explore new places, see the rest of this world.

Instead, I was dying to a stupid bug on floor twelve, seeing no farther than the average person.

My health slips down into the red, signifying that only ten percent of my health is left. The strength leaves my arms and the claws sink even deeper into my flesh. My vision starts to blur out and sounds become distant.

"Uhg, I didn't think... I didn't think I would die so easily..." I watch with a weird detachment as my health bar drops closer and closer to empty.

Wait, I have a ring... I pinch my fingers together and swipe downwards, opening the menu. I press the items button... Where is it, where is it...

I press the equip button right as my health hits the end of the bar.

My world fades out-

"Warhgh!"

I'm... Back in the blue goop! What the hell!

Outside, there's more activity. "Geez, back already?" one voice says.

"Yeah, this time it's a resurrection ring. Idiot got himself killed."

"How?"

"He fought two freaking death scorps at once, at level 19."

"What? That's suicide!"

"Thus, the need for the regeneration ring. He did kill one of them and almost killed the other. There was another player in the area, but he ran off."

"Jeez, that's harsh."

"No kidding. Alright, let's hit the dive button. It's been ten seconds by now."

The world slowly shifts away from blue and back to the pitch black of night. I watch as my health fills back up to around 25% full. I remain completely still as a check to see what's going on.

From above me, there is a hiss. A drop of something blue hits my face.

I'm under the scorpion, aren't I?

I clutch Black Ice and slowly point it towards the creature's stomach. No sudden movements. Thrust.

The wail as the creature dies is quickly replaced by shattering. The shards slowly float down and pop when the hit my body. I lay their, suddenly unable to move. My health bar is still above the red, and there is no paralysis marker... I'm just that tired.

Shouts, lots of them, faintly reach my ears. As far as I can tell, they're still pretty far away.

Well, I survived. Kind of. I open my menu and look at Black Ice. It's durability is down to about 13%. The second stinger, after only two strikes, is down to only 4%. Weak ass weapon.

I take a deep breath and sit up. The world swims around for a second before my eyes refocus enough to try standing up.

Once the world is steady enough that I can orient myself towards the wall, I pack all but a weak sword into my inventory and start trudging the hundred or so yards back to the wall. In my exhausted state, it felt more like a mile.

It was only once I got to the foot of the wall I realized that I wasn't going to be able to climb the rope. I lean against the wall and slide down it, landing in a sitting position next to the rope.

The yelling was getting both louder and less distinct. It sounds like someone is speaking through the blue goop, but it's not the same voices... I think.

My eyes drift shut and the noises gradually fade into nothing.

* * *

I was surprised to open my eyes. I have no recollection of getting up from that side of the wall, and it was supposed to be at least another ten minutes before the next watch was supposed to show-

Actually, according to my clock, the 4 AM to noon shift has already been going on for six hours. Huh. Really passed out then.

I don't move but scan the room with my eyes. It looks very nice, like what the Clearers could afford. Intricate wood-laying, carvings, and even a fireplace. Opulent, that's the word.

I turn my head to the left. There's a few pictures, but I can't see them very well.

Hmm. Need to improve my night sight skill. Recognizing details in the dark could be very import-

The light comes on with a small chime.

I almost jump out of my skin and scramble to draw my sword, but it's not their. I vaguely recall tucking it away so it wouldn't deteriorate further, but didn't I draw a lamer sword as a temporary solution?

A person walks up to me. "Kirito? Are you awake?"

"Yeah." I look at the person, but for some reason, I can't see their face. "Where am I?"

"You're at my house."

Real helpful. "Mmm. Where's my sword?"

"Lizbeth has it, she's repairing it." The person pauses. "She was furious at you for using it so much." I get the impression the person smiles, but I can't... see... a mouth... "I'm just glad you were there to save Ghengis."

"Who's Ghengis?"

"The guard that has the watch after yours. You saved his life."

Oh, right. That coward.

"Mmm." I attempt to sit up, but my ab muscles don't seem to want to respond. "So... What happened after I passed out?"

"I don't know what happened right after you passed out, but we found you when the guard changed. I'm told the guy who was supposed to relieve Ghengis almost fell off the ladder when he saw you down there. He alerted your superior and he got some people to help you up."

"That's great."

I lapse into silence. Well, if I could figure out who this is, I might understand a bit more. I make a significant effort to focus on the person's face, but I can't make out any details. Their face might as well have been a blank slate. I look to the side. The dresser is a nice dresser, one with fine inlays... I look back at my host. Why can't I focus on them? I can see the tiny details in the pictures now that the lights are on?

"Can you help me sit up?" I ask.

The person nods and pulls me upright. I watch their face as they lean down and pull me upright.

They notice my staring. "Um, is there something on my face?"

More like the exact opposite. As far as I can tell, this person has a completely white face, not features at all.

If that's not disturbing, I don't know what is.

"No, not that. Sorry."

I struggle to swing my legs to the side. It's an effort, but once I untangle myself from the covers, I manage to stand up without further assistance.

The person watches me move around- or, I assume they do. Their face remains pointed in my direction, in any case. The body type is completely ambiguous, with only a standard set of light armor as clothes.

Huh, maybe this is the Kayaba guy who sent me that message. It makes a weird sort of sense.

"I need to get going." I announce. "Thanks for taking care of me, but I need to go cancel an appointment."

The person tilts their head to the side. "Really? I didn't know that you had today off."

Uh... What?

"Yeah, sure. Oh, do I owe you anything?"

They shake their head. "Are you sure you're alright? You're acting kind of-"

"I'm fine." I say. "Anyway, thanks for helping me." I walk to the front door and pull it open. I take three steps outside and find myself in a nightmare.

It being ten in the morning, people had already started to do business. That was expected. What wasn't...

Why does everyone have blank faces and light armor? Everyone looks exactly the same!

The blank behind me grabs my shoulder and turns me slightly. "Are you alright?"

"Y-Yeah. Fine." Gotta calm down. Let's see, I need to tell Asuna that I'm not going to be able to make it to the wall, along with my superior. Mom and dad need to know, and... Hmm, Klein? No, he doesn't need to know. I'll tell him next time I see him.

I navigate to the friend menus and select Asuna. A marker pops up to indicate he position-

Which is right behind me. I turn around and still only see a blank. "Asuna?"

"Yes?"

Oh, shit.

"I think I have a major problem."

* * *

It takes another three hours before I can gather my parents, Lizbeth, and Klien to Asuna's house. Of course, it could also just be impostors, seeing as they all look exactly the freaking same!

I look between the blanks, and look for differences. I can see that one of them keeps twiddling with his sword, and I guess that would be Klein. I focus on the next one over and find them fiddling with four swords.

...Maybe that one is Klein? No, probably Lizbeth.

"So, Kirito, what's going on?" Someone in the opposite corner asks. I focus on the speaker. They continue. "I was told this was urgent?"

"Yeah. I... There's something wrong with me. Everybody looks weird."

Face turn to each other and back to me. "Um, is that it?"

"Well, I can't tell any of you apart. Everyone looks exactly the same and blank."

Silence. I look from one face to another. They also look around at each other.

One in the middle points to themself. "So, who am I?"

"Uh..." I point to the two on the end that I'd previously identified. "I think those two are Klein and Lizbeth, judging by the swords. Lizbeth is the one juggling four of the swords." I point to the two in the middle. "I think you two are my parents, since you two are very close to each other." I point to the last one in the line. "Which leaves this person to be Asuna."

"Right... You know, that didn't prove anything to us, right? Since your guesses were all accurate?"

Oh. Duh. "Well, I still don't know which of my parents is which."

Those two look at each other. I'm really starting to miss facial expressions.

"So, when you woke up, you didn't know it was me?" Asuna says.

"I still don't know that it's you. You all could be impostors and I wouldn't know until you said the wrong thing." I frown. "Well, my tracker says that you all are who you say you are, so I'm going to trust you for now."

Klein's head moves slightly. I get the distinct impression he's grinning. "So, I could order one of my guys to come and pretend to be your boss, and since you can't tell the difference, you'd have to obey?"

"Eh..."

"No."

I turn my head to see which of them had spoken. They all have the same voice, which is really annoying as well.

It seems to be Asuna, who continues. "I'll follow him and tell him who everyone is, so he doesn't get in trouble."

Klein says "Even to the bathroom?" and everyone falls silent. I look from blank face to blank face attempting to discern whether he was joking or not, but... You get the picture, I'm sure.

"Ok, so, I need to figure out how to fix my sight. Until then, the less people I have to see, the better. Any suggestions?"

Everyone starts talking at once. Five of the same voice fill the room, and I immediately lose track of each line of thought.

"Okay! Nevermind that."

The voices quiet down. I watch as everyone settles down into (hopefully) the same positions.

"How about this, I'll go back to the shop, and stay in the back until the problem is fixed?"

One of my parents shake their head. "You're still orange."

I look at my indicator, and sure enough, still a mix of red and yellow.

Lizbeth (I think) speaks. "He could come with me, I've got plenty of space."

"He could, but then your shop would be suspected of supplying orange players."

"He could stay here." Asuna injects. "He's already here, and once he gets his sight back, he can go right back to the wall."

"It's not like I'm blind, I just can't see you guys' faces." I grumble. "and you all look the same too."

One of my parents gets up. "Well, try to figure it out soon. I don't want you calling me mom all the time." I'm going to assume its dad.

"Better than calling you Klein, right?" I smirk.

"Hey!"

Soon, the most awkward goodbyes of my life are over (I'm not to hug Klein, but I usually hug my parents goodbye. It took me a bit to sort them out) and I'm left alone with Asuna. A quick location tag confirms it as well.

"So, you really can't tell who I am?"

"Not without a location tag or you telling me, no."

She turns to face me and makes a "mehhhhh" sound.

I continue to look blankly at her. Hey, at least my blank looks still have features! "I'm going to assume you made a face at me and ignore that."

Her face turns away and she mumbles something.

We throw around potential solutions and try a few of them, but to no avail. Darkness descends before we come up with a solution. We use the same sleeping arrangements as before, with me lounging on her couch. Thankfully, I don't get woken by blunt trauma this time.

The next morning, Asuna makes breakfast. It's delicious, but I couldn't enjoy her face while I ate-

What the-?

I'm going to fire my brain unless it fixes itself right now!

I suddenly get an idea. I look through my messages and find the special one from Kabaya and press respond.

"Dear Kayaba. I would like to inform you that I'm currently unable to see anyone's face. You seem to know a lot about weird stuff, so I thought I'd ask you about it."

I send the message off.

Asuna's head tilts. "Who did you just message?"

I shrug. "Just some guy who sent me a weird message when-" Oh, maybe I shouldn't tell her about that.

"When what?"

"When I... Tried the log out button?" Wait, did I just tell her? What the hell, brain!

"You tried it? What happened?"

"I ended up in the same place as I did when I updated."

She covers her mouth area with her hands. "You got trapped in the blue goop?"

I blink. "Yeah. It's weird. There's definitely people there too. One of them was talking to me. They throw around weird words a lot though-"

A chime announces that a message had just come through. I abort my conversation and open the message.

"Really? I guess this might be our fault. I guess your going to have to log out again. Give me three minutes to get some people ready to put you back in immediately and then log out.

"Geez, you're a pain in the ass.

"Kayaba Akihiko"

I blink. "He says to log out again in three minutes."

"So, you need to go back to the blue goop?"

I shrug. "Seems like it."

"I wonder if it has magical powers. It seems like visiting there fixes things."

I think back to the conversations I overheard. "No, I think the people there think we are nuisances. They seemed pretty irritated when I used the log out button before."

"Oh. Maybe those are angels?"

I hope not. I look at my clock in the corner on my eye. "Three minutes is up. See you in a bit."

I navigate the menus and press the indicated button. A now familiar sensation as my vision blurs and turns blue, but this time I immediately reverse and wake up to see Asuna looking at me with fear in her eyes.

"Good, it really was you."

Her face softens. "You can see me again?"

"Yup."

She sighs. "Good. I'll message your parents."

I get up as a chime sounds for another message.

"Never contact me again. I'm a busy guy. By rights, we should never have talked, but since you managed to get a bugged client, I've had to intervene twice. Now stop doing stupid things.

"Oh yeah, I also cleared your orange status. It'll keep you off the front lines, so less work for me. Now leave me alone."

This one is unsigned, but I'm pretty sure it's the same guy. Asuna raises an eyebrow at my expression. Ah, it's nice to read expressions.

"I guess I'll message Lizbeth." I pull open another window and select her name.

"Lizbeth, got my sight back. Long story. Coming to pick up swords. See you soon."

I sign it and send it. "Asuna, going to Lizbeth's to get my sword back. If the commander comes by, tell him that I don't have any weapons and went to purchase new ones."

"But aren't you still orange?" she looks at my marker. "You aren't!"

I look as well. "Huh. Guess my time was up." I check my inventory. "I guess I need to visit mom and dad to drop off some of my loot. I'm going to need it to pay off Lizbeth."

Asuna puts a hand in her hip and leans to the side. "How much does she charge you for repairs?"

I shrug. "I just gave her a lump sum to cover the ten or so times that I sent those swords in. I'm not even sure it was enough." I wince. "Maybe she'll give me a discount."

Asuna smirks. "I'm sure she will. Anyway, see you tomorrow?"

I nod. "Probably."

We shake hands and I leave the nice house behind and walk through the city towards the portal. Funny how little attention the same face attracts when the marker is green instead of orange.

The journey back is uneventful. It's a nice change of pace to not have people pointing and edging away from me. I walk into my parents shop without even a single person pointing me out.

"Hey, mom! How's business?"

She starts and turns around. "Kirito! What are you doing here? I thought..." Her eyes flick up to my health bar. "You're back to green!"

"Yeah. I need to trade some things so I can pay off Lizbeth."

Mom narrows her eyes. "How much do you owe her?"

I shrug. "How much did she say repairs were?"

"She didn't. I just handed her the bag of money you gave me."

"Ahg. Ok, I need at least a tenth of that, so..."

Mom is an expert haggler, but I was raised by her. It takes us a good half an hour to make the trade, mostly because we couldn't agree on a price for one pound of scorpion meat.

"I can't believe she thought it wasn't worth anything! I had to kill some really hard things to get it. It's rare!" I grumble to nobody as I walk down the street.

Lizbeth's shop is surrounded by holy terrain, and seeing it in the day, I can pick out where Asuna was ambushed and even see where the best ambush spots would be. This road is kind of set up for thieves, to be honest. Lots of hiding spots, corners, and... What is that?

I lean over to pick up a needle. Tapping it brings up a menu.

"Throwing needle, poisoned." I look over its stats. It could be useful in a pinch, but without the poison on it, it won't do much at all.

I glance around, but I don't see anyone around who could be attempting to spring a trap on me.

"Ok, on to Lizbeth's."

It only takes a few more minutes to arrive at Lizbeth's shop. I open the door and some bells sound. "Hey, Lizbeth! What's goingGAH"

My breath leaves my body as one of the fiercest tackles I've ever faced slams into me. The world spins as we tumble backwards, and I count five dizzy rotations before I end up on my back staring up at Lizbeth. "Hi."

From her position on top of me, she responds. "Hi! I didn't know you'd be back so soon."

I continue to stare up at her. "Uh, get off of me, please?"

She blushes. "Right. Sorry, sorry." She pulls herself to her feet.

"So," I cough and get to my feet. "I came to get my swords and pay of my debt."

Her eyebrow quirks. "What debt?"

"I've been sending in my weapons for regular maintenance. Isn't that expensive?"

She shake her head. "No additional materials are involved unless it's really damaged, so most of the time it's just paying for my time." She turns and winks at me. "I still normally charge customers full price either way. Easy way to turn a few col."

I roll my eyes. "Right. So, did I overpay you, then?"

She hesitates. "...Yeah. By about a hundred times."

My jaw almost hits the floor. "What?"

"Since you so generously provided me with the funds to buy better equipment, I was able to make this beauty!" She proudly holds up a clear blade with a black handle. "It's the best sword I've ever made. It's powerful, and has a concealment bonus when drawn!"

My mouth starts to water. "Please tell me you're planning to sell that."

"Of course not!"

My stomach sinks. "Oh. Well, in that case-"

"I'm just going to give it to you, dummy!" She smacks me in the back of my head. Huh, no warning. I must be a lot higher level than her. I didn't really feel it that much, either...

"Really? I could still pay you for your efforts-"

"Nope. Just come back when you need your sword sharpened."

I blink. That sounded... Double entendre-ish. "Sure." I look down at the bag of money in my inventory. "Could I, I don't know, buy more swords like this one? I seem to be going through them like crazy."

She nods and ducks under the divider between the front and back of the shop. I pull out my bag of money and place it in the trade menu.

Lizbeth walks out a few seconds later with a bundle of swords in her arms.

"Okay, so here's Black Ice, like brand new. These three are generic swords like your backup I made you. This one has a spot for an elemental stone, if you happen to find one, and this one-" She hefts a buster sword I to the counter, causing something to go crunch. "Is something I'm not going to be able to sell to anyone without a strength of at least ten." She sighs. "Kirirto, I'm hitting a dead end."

I look up from the menus detailing the specs of each sword with a question slashed across my face.

She nods. "You're a swordsman, so you understand the importance of leveling. Well, for a smith, unless you go out there and fight, you eventually reach a point where you can't improve your skills. This is true of all trades, but I'm at my limit. That sword-" she points the clear bladed sword in my hands "is the limit to my skill unless I start leveling."

I go back to measuring out funds. 1000 col for the elemental sword, 750 for the three backup swords, 2500 for the buster sword... Which I wouldn't even be able to use effectively...

"Alright, I'm buying all of these." I place the bag of coins on the counter.

She looks vaguely surprised for a second before unlocking the items from her inventory so I can take them. I put all but Black Ice into my inventory. I'll look at their names later.

"Kirito?" Lizbeth shuffles her feet. "Can I ask you something?"

"Uh... You just did."

She rolls her eyes and huffs. "I mean... Can I go with you to the wall? I can probably get some levels on me, and then I can make even better weapons!" She gets an excited glint in her eyes.

"Actually, I don't think that's a good idea. Recently, some pretty difficult monsters have shown up. I wouldn't want to put you in too much danger..."

She frowns. "But, I can't keep up with you if I don't level up! I mean, even now, I don't know what level you are, but I bet it's at least into the teens!"

I smirk. "With those two death scorps, I got to level 20."

He eyes widen. "Level 20? But... then you shouldn't have any trouble protecting me at all!" Her cheeks puff out into a pout.

"Fine, I'll take you, but I refuse to take responsibility for your death."

She nods. "Got it. See you tomorrow then?"

I smile. "Yeah. My shift starts at noon, on the southeast wall."

She nods again. "Got it! And Kirito?"

"Hmm?"

She plants a kiss on my cheek. "Try not to get killed before then."

I freeze up and barely react as she retreats behind the door of her shop.

What the crap was that about?


	4. Chapter 4: Laughing Coffin

Supposedly, the wall only kept me out of trouble until my icon changed back to green. Since I missed my last day, today's going to be a makeup day. I guess I'm happy that I don't have to be on the wall for eight hours a day after today... But I did get all the way to level 20 out there. So, my first day both free and updated was spent wandering on the eighth floor. It's a nice forested area, with plenty of places to relax and get away from other people.

I was thinking about my options. Being a strong player, I know I really should either join the army or the Clearers, but I keep going around in circles as to which to sign up with. Both are mutually exclusive too, which doesn't make the decision process easier.

I'm currently inside of a cathedral, one that was rarely used. No one is sure why these buildings were built, since nobody ever uses them except when there's too many refugees from a floor that just got captured. So, I figured I was going to be safe in here. I snuck past the guard with my fancy new weapon that gives me a huge boost to concealment (called Ghost of the night, appropriately enough) and climbed up into the bell tower to look around as I gathered my thoughts. I was there for a while, until it was almost time for me to go back to the wall. Oh, and give Lizbeth a chance to fight.

That was when the army barged in.

At least, that's what I thought they were at first. The army issues out the same type of armor to every member, so when you see a group with that armor on, you immediately assume that their part of the army.

It wasn't until the first one pulled off their helmet that I recognized something was wrong. The army is pretty much all we have for law enforcement on all levels. They're the ones who were in charge of enforcing my sentence after all. So, that means there is absolutely no way that a red player would be allowed into their ranks, let alone...

Are all of these people red? Only two of the twelve have helmets on, and every single one of the others is red.

I figure staying hidden is the best option.

"What a haul!" Says the first guy to take off his helmet, a guy in his late forties with bright red hair to match his marker. He pulls out a bag of stuff and sets it on the table in front of him.

A female on his right agrees. "I can't believe he called himself a Clearer! What a joke!"

A few other laugh. The red haired guy opens the sack and pours out their spoils.

"Ooh! Look at this!" The female says. She holds up a crown-like object. "It's got a large bonus to perception!"

One of the larger guys, black with a bald head, who has a heavy looking axe strapped to his back smirks. "Right. Too bad for him he wasn't wearing it."

The girl puts on the crown and looks around. "Doesn't seem to work too well. Is it broken?"

"It's not going to have any effects in the day, or in such tight quarters." the red haired man says. "Well, maybe if there is anyone invisible, but yeah, not likely."

I slowly draw my sword with the concealment bonus, called Thief.

Once I'm sure that it is currently giving me a boost to my already decent hiding skills, I resume listening to the PKers downstairs.

"...who is our next target?" The woman asks, hands clasped together in childish glee.

"There's this blacksmith on floor ten. She lives in an isolated area, and reports are she's recently come by a windfall of money. She's purchased a lot of high priced smithing tools."

"That sounds like a haul and a half!" One of the two helmeted guys shouts, his tone leaving no doubt he found the whole situation enjoyable.

"Yeah. Unfortunately, she has this friend who is getting very strong. We need to make sure he's out of the way, and it won't be easy. Guy's on the top of the leader-boards."

The bald man shrugs. "So was this guy." He gestures to the loot.

"Uh huh. Still, we need to be careful. This guy almost took out Driver."

The girl snorts. "What kind of name is Driver anyway?"

One of the guys with a helmet on growls. "It's an old term."

She rolls her eyes.

On the table, the pile of loot is being distributed into twelve portions. To my eyes, two people are definitely getting to best of everyone else since they kept opting for the not so shiny objects. You know, the ones that actually increase your stats, combat ability, that sort of thing.

"So, this guy. Is he like, red or something? I mean, most people would rather die then be branded a killer." A blond teenager plays with his share of the loot distractedly as he speaks.

"No, he's just a regular swordsman. My informant said he has a strong protective streak though."

The woman waves her hand dismissively. "Whatever. We can handle anything anyone sends after us."

Driver snorts, his mask muffling the noise somewhat. The woman whirls on him, but is stopped by a blade at her throat. The red haired man holds the hilt, and is giving her a warning look.

She huffs and backs off, and the red haired man turns back to the table. "It's almost noon. As soon as night falls, we're gonna hit this place."

The bald man leans against the wall. "Who's the owner? I used to know a lot of smiths."

"No problem there, buddy. She just started around a year ago, so you wouldn't know her."

The blond teenager opens an eye from his sleeping position. "Is she cute?"

Chuckles come from the surrounding PKers.

"What? I haven't had a date in, like, a month!" He complains.

"Search for her with your menu then. Her player code is-"

Huh?... Oh crap. Player codes can't be overheard in any manner, so it gets magically censored whenever someone says it out loud.

The blond types something into his menu-

Why is Lizbeth... Their target is Lizbeth! I need to warn her!

Wait, that makes me the guy they need to get rid of!

* * *

You would think that I'd immediately rush out and warn her, but... Well, as soon as they got over looking at her picture for a minute, they drew watches and started guarding entrances. Which is why I'm still stuck in a bell tower three hours later, panicking internally so as not to alert them of my presence. Oh, and I'm sure I'm going to be in deep shit now that I missed another day on the wall.

I had already tried my warp crystal, but it had decided not to work. This place must be in an anti-crystal zone. Which is always convenient. Who decided a cathedral needed to be an anti-crystal zone in the first place? It doesn't make sense!

Worse, these guys are definitely professionals, with one or two exceptions. In the past three hours, I saw them pull out a map, organize a decent perimeter, and generally act like... Well, parts of the army. If they didn't have red icons, this could pass as a unit passing through.

Red icons and plans to kill me friend.

I touch me cheek where she had kissed me. What was she trying to do anyway? I mean, if she liked me in that way, why wouldn't she just say so? And if not, why-

I'm going to go insane if I keep thinking about that.

Suddenly, an opening presents itself. The bald black man abandons his post to the back door. He opens a message window, and after surreptitiously checking to make sure nobody can see him, he opens a message window. As soon as he stops looking around, I descend the steps of the bell-tower as silently as I can, and still grasping my sword, sneak up to him and around. He's still paying all his attention to his message, whatever it is. I can only see a purple box since he still has his privacy setting up. I slide up against the wall and press myself as flat as I can go. With one more glance at the man, who looks massive now that I'm down on his level, I cross the threshold of the building. I can feel my crystal buzzing in my pouch as it resumes function. I hold in a sigh of relief and take a few more steps away from the building.

Glancing back at the man, who is still looking at his message, I pull out the teleport crystal.

Whispering, it tell the crystal "Teleport, Rockport."

A blue glow surrounds me. That's not good.

A hand clamps down on my shoulder with enough force to cancel the teleportation crystal. I look up to see the man finished with his message. His axe is still lying across his back, and I have my sword drawn, but I still feel at a disadvantage.

"Uh, hi! J-Just passing through." I say feebly.

"Sure. And you just happened to stumble upon our temporary hideout and listen to out whole conversation." He says with an easy smile.

I gulp.

"Look, kid, I'm not gonna kill you. If I was, you'd have been dead in that bell tower." He lets go of me. "I know you can't trust me, but we can't talk in the open. I'm going to tell Verde to go screw- tell Verde that I'm taking a break. When I'm done with that, I'm going to go to the back of the cathedral. If you happen to be there, we'll talk."

He turns and walks back to the doorway he was watching over.

Well, he's probably getting his friends right now. I should teleport out... but he did notice me in the cathedral, and I'm not dead. Maybe it was a bluff?

Standing out here in the open isn't going to help anything either. I go around to the back of the building. Maybe I should wait for him, but have my crystal ready to go? Yeah that sounds good.

I hold out my crystal and wait. After about a minute, the man comes back. He nods to me.

"So, you decided to hear me out."

I show him the teleport crystal. "Maybe."

He smirks. "Good choice. Let's see, you're Kirito, aren't you? The boy Verde was warning us about?"

"...How did you know that?"

He opens his menu and presses the privacy button, turning it off. He point to the message box, and I can see a message from Thinker. I can't read the smaller text while it's reversed though.

"Thinker? Isn't he the leader of the army?"

"Yeah. He's my superior. I've been tasked with making sure the Laughing Coffin guild kills as few people as possible. I'm Agil, by the way."

I remain a good distance away. "Charmed."

He nods. "Hey, I get to meet Kirito out of the deal. You may not know it, but on the lower three floors, you're almost a hero. Thinker personally told me about you saving the daughter of one of the Clearers."

"Uh huh. Say I believe you, then why are you allowed in the army? Red marked people are strictly prohibited."

"Uh huh. I was green when I joined, but... I was tasked with locating the Laughing Coffin, and when I did, one of their members noticed me. He and I fought, and I accidentally killed him while trying to protect myself. It honestly was an accident, and it's not a feeling I want to revisit. The rest of the guild heard and came out trying to kill me. I managed to convince them I was there to join them, and it was convenient that one of their members had just kicked the bucket. That's how I got a red marker. I messaged thinker and he told me to continue with the LC and see if I could stop them from killing people."

He looks over his shoulder. "I've been kind of successful, to the point that our numbers keep going down because of 'stupid mistakes' and pre-warned victims." He focuses on my face. "You need to warn Lizbeth, then get away from her shop. We're going to hit it hard with all the new stuff she's been purchasing."

"I'm fine with warning her, I was going to do that anyway."

"Good. Now, you might want to talk to Thinker when you teleport out to confirm my words. You should go now though, and get Lizbeth out of that building."

I nod and lift up my crystal. "Teleport, Rockport!"

This time, I blink and find myself standing on the giant pad in the center of the floor. I quickly orient myself and dash off towards Lizbeth's shop.

Along the way, I send a message as suggested to Thinker. It doesn't take long for a response.

Huh. Agil was telling me the truth. That's... Good, since I know what's going on. If he hadn't been telling the truth, then we would have a massive problem, since their plans would currently be changing.

Thoughts of defensive strategies cross through my mind as I race the rest of the way out of the city and to Lizbeth's house.

Once I reach it, I grab the front door and slam it open. "Lizbeth! You need to... Asuna?"

Lizbeth and Asuna both blink at me, then look at each other. Then they both burst out laughing.

"What? What's so funny?" I look around, but nobody else is here. "Ahg, Nevermind that. A red guild is coming to raid this shop."

Both girls fall silent. "Huh? Why?"

I sigh. "I overheard them saying that you bought a lot of new equipment recently. They want to take it. Every single person in that guild is red too."

Asuna stands up abruptly. "What were you doing hanging around a red guild?!"

"Uh, I wasn't-"

"Yeah! Kirito, I thought you had more sense than that!" Lizbeth stands up less abruptly and puts her hands on her hips.

"Look, you're missing-"

"Kirito, you need to be more careful, what if they saw you?"

"One of them did, but-"

"They did?!" Asuna sinks back into her chair. "How did you escape?"

"I-"

"I don't care how he did. If you ever hang around-"

"Would you both shut up!" I cover my ears and yell.

They both cross their arms and look at me with barely restrained expressions. It's kinda scary, to be honest.

"Look, I was inside an abandoned cathedral and they trapped me inside. I wasn't able to get out. I overheard them talking about coming here. When I saw a chance to escape, I did, but the guy guarding that door is actually a plant for the army and a lot higher level than he appears. He saw me, and we talked for a bit. I confirmed with Thinker that he works for the army as well."

They look at each other. "That's an amazing coincidence." Lizbeth says.

"I know. Technically, it's my fault since I bought all that stuff so you could make better swords. Anyway, Agil said to clear out so nobody dies."

Lizbeth lowers her hands back to her hips. "So, where do you suppose I go?"

"I don't know. How about my parents' shop? I'm sure they'll take you."

Asuna pushes her lips out and narrows her eyes. "So, your going to be with her then?"

My neck under the collar of my shirt starts to sweat. "Uh, no. I'm going to be here."

"Didn't Agil say to clear out?" Lizbeth echoes my words back at me.

I draw Black Ice and Thief. "I can handle myself."

Asuna taps her hand against her rapier. "So can I."

I look at her askance. "I wasn't planning on you being here."

"Well, I am. So there. I'm not leaving unless you do."

Lizbeth muddles through her menus for a few seconds before a mace appears strapped across her back. "I can't let you two fight without-"

Both Asuna and I turn to her at once and say, in perfect unison, "NO!"

Lizbeth sighs, but leaves the mace across her back.

I throw up my hands in the air. "Fine, we're all leaving. Lizbeth, lock the door on the way out, we don't want them to have an easy time of it. We'll head to my parent's shop, and they should be willing to accommodate us for tonight."

Lizbeth nods glumly and heads to the back of her shop. Asuna follows her to the doorway, but no further.

I look around the shop. Aside from from the times after my update, I'd only been in this shop once when Lizbeth first opened it. That was about a year ago, when she had gotten her update.

Huh, didn't Asuna get her update about a year ago?

I toss the thought into the back of mind as Lizbeth comes out from the back loaded with swords and maces and axes. She dumps them onto the counter in front of me. I just stare at them blankly. "Planning to equip an army?"

She snorts. "Pick them up. I'm not going to let them take anything I don't have to. The machinery and stuff isn't feasible, but I can still bring all of my inventory with me. It would suck to have to start over entirely from scratch."

I nod. "Hey, at least we got advance warning. Otherwise, you would have to start over from scratch."

Lizbeth nods glumly and shoves more stuff onto the counter, all of which I tuck into my quite massive inventory. It goes up with levels, and at level twenty I had about triple that of the level one people. Normally I would've just scooped up all the stuff and tucked it into my inventory, but Lizbeth wanted me to put borrowed labels on all of them so I couldn't keep them. I assured her I wouldn't, but she insisted. The borrowing process took a good five seconds more, and loading around a hundred weapons into my inventory took substantially longer than it should have. After I'm completely loaded up, Asuna starts piling weapons into her inventory. She had reached level fourteen, so she has a decent carrying capacity as well. After we both have our item space loaded down with Lizbeth's goods, the blacksmith looks around her shop.

"Well, we can't carry more. The rest of this is pretty low level stuff to, so it isn't going to be too massive a loss."

Asuna places a hand on Lizbeth's shoulder. "Don't worry. You'll be back in business soon enough."

Lizbeth nods, but I see tears in her eyes.

"We should probably go. They're going to be here in an hour." I say quietly.

Asuna gently starts guarding Lizbeth out the door. I follow behind them as they turn down the path towards the town. Lizbeth sniffs before closing and locking the door, but she has a smile on her face before she turns around. "Okay! So it's like a sleep over then!"

She seems to be really good at hiding her pain. Asuna barely reacts but to blink. "Okay, yeah! That's a good way to think of it. Let's get going, we don't want to be outside the walls at night."

She wasn't referring to the walls on floor twelve of course. Each and every city has walls around it, but since floor twelve is the only one under constant assault, it's the wall people refer to most often. Most people understand which wall is meant by context.

We walk at a slower, more leisurely pace, taking time to look at flowers. Lizbeth seems to be forcing her expression less and less as time wears on. She and Asuna get to chatting like they've been friends for years. I follow a few paces behind the two. Smiling slightly as they get into discussing the merits of different rapiers. I tune them out and look up at the bottom of floor eleven. It's nice to be out during the evening, where all the filtered light is reddish in hue, and the breezes pick up. I pause my walking long enough to turn towards the sun and marvel at the ball of fire that governs our sleep cycle.

Basking in the light of the golden orb, I decide to make myself a promise. I'm going to figure out what's on floor one hundred and make this place safe for everyone live.

I've already said that I was going to do as much, but now with that promise, I wasn't allowed to back down. I wouldn't let myself back down.

"Kirito?" Asuna asks. I look back down the path to see Asuna and Lizbeth both looking back at me with inquisitive looks.

"Ah, just looking at the sunset." I rub the back of my head. "Sorry."

Lizbeth smirks. "Not trying to sneak off, were you?"

I glare at her. "With the punishment you'd dish out if I did? Hell no!"

Asuna's face scrunches up. "Wait, isn't Kirito higher level than you, Lizbeth?"

Lizbeth's smirk gets bigger. "Technically, but he's also dependent on me to service his weapons. If he hurt me or my business, he would need to find some other smith." She slides up to me and wraps her arm around my neck pulling me down as she locks in the hold. "And besides, I've had permission to beat him up for as long as I remember."

From my awkward position facing the ground, I raise a hand. "I wasn't the one who gave her permission, by the way."

Asuna tosses us both an unbelieving look before turning back towards Rockport. "Either way, let's get to the city. It's going to get dark soon."

Lizbeth releases me and I stand up straight, slowly following behind them.

We reach the edge of the city without any problems. It's kinda disconcerting that I feel the need to clarify that for each journey. I guess getting attacked does that to you. At the gate, Lizbeth checks her clock.

"Only a few minutes now." She says glumly. "Oh well. Nothing we can do about it now."

She turns to me. "So, I'm going to stop by a friend's house real quick, then I'll meet back at your place."

I shrug. "Okay."

Asuna bites her lip. "I should probably inform dad I'm okay as well."

They both wave bye and head for the teleporter. I watch them go holding my smile in place until the last shimmering lights disappear. I immediately reequip my swords and turn around.

Judging from my sprint before, I can make it to Lizbeth's shop in ten minutes.

The sun is going to fully abandon this world for the night in fifteen.

* * *

The path flies by underneath me as I reach speeds that any level one sprinter would be jealous of. For the second time today, I arrive at Liz's shop.

I draw both of my swords and stand in front of the door. It isn't long before the Laughing Coffin shows up.

Almost all of them have surprised looks on their faces. I guess if I was planning on robbing a place, I wouldn't be suspecting there to be people waiting for me, ready for a fight.

I meet the red haired man's eyes as he draws near.

"So, the boy shows himself." He sneers.

I smirk back at him. "Uh huh. I heard someone was planning on attacking my friend, so I decided to stop that from happening."

The leader laughs, followed by his subordinates. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Agil laughing heartlessly.

His look seemed to be conveying the thought, "You idiot."

I straighten up and point my swords at the incoming troops. "I challenge you to a duel!"

The leader rolls his eyes. "Right, I'm not that stupid. One on one is never a good idea especially against a unknown."

"Who said one on one? I challenge you all to a duel at once."

The man loses his cool. "You can't be serious."

"I am. Hell, you can choose the rules."

He narrows his eyes and looks around at the rest of his guild. The female clenches her fists in anticipation. Agil is frowning at me, but not making a move to stop me. The blond teenager is edging away from the rest of the group. The two helmeted men stand there stoically. The rest just kind of stand there bored.

"You know what? I'll accept your challenge. All of us against you, and we'll turn on kill protection. The deal is, you beat us, we let you go, and if we win, you give us all of you items."

I shrug. "Suits me."

Kill protection is a thing in duels that limits the damage done to a person. It is impossible to lose the last hit point on your health bar, so nobody dies, even when severely outmatched.

Of course, now I don't have to hold back whatsoever.

He presses a few keys, and I receive a confirmation window. I press yes-

"Hey! The blond kid is out of the duel!" I yell. He had managed to sneak outside of the deal radius before we had finalized the deal. A timer starts ticking down from sixty directly below the phrase "11 on 1 duel"

"Kagamine!" Red hair yells. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sensing someone out here. I'm gonna check it out. Don't worry, I'm not going to attack anyone." The blond kid, Kagamine, responds.

The rest of the Laughing Coffin spreads out to creat a crescent moon around my spot in the circle. I watch as they all ready weapons and prepare for light combat. Not a single one reaches for a crystal of any kind.

Thirty seconds.

I quickly grab both swords into my left hand, open my menu with my right, and summon a healing crystal. It would come in handy after the battle is over, whether I win or lose.

Twenty seconds.

The leader turns back to the fight and stands in front of me, five subordinates on either side. "My name is Verde. What is yours?"

I almost laugh out loud. "Verde? Then why's your hair red?"

His left eye twitches. "Your name."

"Kirito." I tuck the crystal into my pouch and regrip Black Ice in my right hand, leaving Thief in my left.

Ten seconds.

I relax into a stance that will allow me to enable my fastest sword skill almost immediately after the timer goes to zero.

Five seconds.

I slide my eyes back and forth as I watch the others fan out even further to surround me.

Two seconds.

I watch Verde's feet shuffle as he sinks into a stance.

One second.

I blink.

The timer drops to zero.

My swords both immediately start glowing blue, and about seven of the eleven weapons around me activate as well.

Too bad for them my skill is built to handle crowds. I unleash the full fury of a bladed tornado as I whirl around towards Verde at top speed.

The man barely dodges my initial attack. As I abruptly change direction, I clip several of the other members of the Laughing Coffin. Three of them, despite the blow being a glancing one at best, fall down, only the barest sliver of health keeping them alive.

As my attack finishes, the Laughing Coffin stops looking so laid back and start looking a lot more focused.

"Not as easy as you'd think I would be, huh?" My mouth curls into a nasty smile.

"Lucky shot, kid, lucky shot." Verde says. He gestures with his left hand and Agil, Driver and the other helmeted man all approach me threateningly.

Agil catches my eye. I nod my head in understanding. He can't go easy, because then his cover would get blown.

I take two measured steps back and ready another sword skill.

Driver makes the first move. He unsheathes his long sword, a two handed affair that looks like it was designed to inflict pain, rather than just cut. His swing takes him around in an arc which I easily duck under. That's when Agil's axe comes for me down low. Instead of jumping straight back up, I leap for Driver and knock him back with me as the second helmeted man's mace comes crashing down on the spot I would've been in. Instead of smashing my head in, all he succeeding in doing was losing his balance and falling into Agil. Both go down in a pile. I roll to my feet and stab Driver, reducing his health to the knockout point. I draw Thief from the damaged armor and face Verde.

Verde isn't looking too hot, to be honest. His smirk is completely gone, replaced with a grimace of determination.

"So, you are as powerful as the rumors say." He comments.

"I wouldn't know. Spent too much time out on the wall fighting things. What do the rumors say?" I taunt.

"They say that you're less than a month from your update. They say you're level 15 already. They say you're on the leader board."

"I can't say anything about that last one, but the first one is true. My level though? I'm not level fifteen."

I let Black Ice slip into a single handed strike while I prepare to guard with Thief. The blade glows brighter and brighter until I release the skill. My feet leap ahead and my sword flies straight and true-

Only to be deflected by another sword from the side. I instinctively raise Thief up to deflect the new blade, but it's wielder is strong. A quick glance to the side reveals the female Laughing Coffin member in a full on rage, blood vessels almost popping out of her face as she grits her teeth hard.

I disengage our swords, and her falls and cleaves the earth where it hits.

"Meet Lisanna. She's my personal bodyguard." Verde says calmly. "She's the second member to join the Laughing Coffin, and easily the best sword fighter here."

She lifts her blade back up to ready position and spits to the side. "If you want to get to him, you need to go through me."

I ready Thief and Black Ice. "Gladly."

Both of our weapons glow with energy, mine blue and hers red. Her attack is a massive swing at my head, one I'm hard pressed to dodge, and instead have to take on the blade of Thief. A warning pops into my sight about a massive drop in durability of that weapon.

I have heard of that move, called sword breaker. Normally, a swordsman or woman uses a buster sword for it, but it seems Lisanna has managed to repurpose it for her long sword. I back away a few steps and watch her closely. She readies for another strike but doesn't start charging a skill yet. She's probably waiting for the sword breaker to recharge.

I subtly look around at the rest of the field. Out of the original eleven, only six are left standing. Agil had stood up, but the guy that stumbled into him hadn't. I wasn't sure if that was on purpose, but it certainly helped.

I tuck Thief into my sheath across my back and quickly pull out another blade, one of the many backups Lizbeth had made me. It gleams in the dull light from the stars. It looks like it's identical to Black Ice, but it doesn't have a name and isn't as powerful.

Suddenly, Lisanna's sword starts glowing red again. She charges at me with speed rivaling mine. I bring up my spare just in time to deflect the attack, and it shatters upon impact. Lisanna is left slightly off balance, and I take the opportunity to swipe of her ribcage. I get in a few slashes, but she's got too much health for me to take her out like that.

It does get her to take a step back, and I exploit the opening as best I can, stabbing Black Ice into a hole in her guard.

This time, Verde deflects my sword away from Lisanna. I don't waste time leaping away from him as he guards Lisanna as she recovers. He motions with three of his fingers and the four remaining henchmen, including Agil, close in. I don't let my eyes wander from Verde as they close in. I quickly pull out yet another backup sword and hold it in a upside down fashion, so one blade is facing forwards and one backwards. En I sink low and jump straight up.

Six faces watch me soar up, spinning majestically in the air.

Thats when the four henchmen left drop. Verde's eyes snap back to my position, the illusion gone.

My coat ruffles in the breeze. I smile as Verde's eyes bulge and his hand clenches around the hilt of his sword.

"You... What are you?" He says brokenly.

"I'm just your average swordsman." I ready Black Ice and my backup.

"No, you can't be. Not with skills like that. Are you from a guild?" He raises his sword halfway, putting up a pitiable defense.

"Nope. Fresh out of the city. You're just that bad." I flip the blade around and take a running leap at the crimson haired man.

Mid leap, his desolate expression morphs to one of glee. Too late, I realize he wanted me to active my sword skill.

He drops below my lunge and brings his sword up into my chest. It doesn't pierce my light armor, but the impact is enough to knock the wind out of my lungs. I go stumbling backwards as he strides up to me. "You seem to be powerful, but you're too arrogant. You just said you're fresh out of the city? You need to learn to bow to your superiors. Challenging me bought you some time, but Lisanna and I are more than enough to handle you now."

I regain my balance and watch as Lisanna also gets to her feet and lifts her sword into the stance for a a sword breaker.

I pull both of my swords close to my body and wait for them to make their move.

Predictably, Lisanna swings first. Her sword comes around in an arc, but this time I know how to dodge it. I let the blow swing quickly under me and slice downwards at her head. The blade connects with her skull with a crunch.

Her eyes roll up and she passes out on the ground, defeated.

I swipe my blade back into position as I bring my guard up and face the last remaining member of the Laughing Coffin.

He readies his blade, but I have an easier solution.

"You were smart not to do one on one." I comment as I sheathe my backup sword. "It wouldn't have ended well for you."

Verde snarls. "It's not over yet!"

I flick my left hand at him, glowing needles streaking towards him with unerring accuracy. He manages to deflect two of them, but the third spikes him in the arm and causes paralysis. His limp form hits the ground and loses grip on his sword. I walk over unmolested and kick away his sword, sending it skittering along the cobble road outside of Lizbeth's shop.

"Actually, for you? Over. Completely over."

Instead of wasting my durability on him, I punch his face in, causing him to black out and for the duel to close.

"Winner: Kirito" flashes in the air above the time the duel took to finish, 3 minutes and twenty eight seconds.

I look at the bodies strewn around. I don't have the means to restrain them, really. I better send a message to the army. The real army.

I type up a quick message to Thinker and remain with my swords drawn, just in case one of them decides to wake up.

"Kirito!"

I whirl as I hear... Is that Asuna? If it is, I'm in deep trouble.

"Kirito! Hel-"

Yup, definitely Asuna. What was she doing here?

Suddenly, my mind leaps back to the start of the duel. Kagamine! I had forgotten him!

I plow through the bush and-

Oh hell. Kagamine is standing with a sword in either hand, one at Asuna's throat, and one at Lizbeth's throat.

"I wouldn't come closer if I was you." He smiles nastily. "They're both so pretty. How come you get both, and I get neither?"

I lower my sword until its point is almost scraping the ground. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I'm giving you a choice. You can only have one of them, and I get the other." he swings his blades about, such that Asuna has to lean backwards a bit to avoid being cut.

As my mind resists panic, a small portion of my logic continues to function well enough for me to pick up that Asuna and Lisbeth are both tied and gagged.

I look between the three of them. "So, I have to pick, huh?"

His smile splits his face. "I knew you'd see it my way-"

His eyes widen as the sword sticking out of his chest slowly sinks deeper into his form. "Huh? But... How'd you get over here?"

"Coat of illusions. It's pretty useful, wouldn't you say?"

He collapses to the ground. I hurriedly untie Asuna and toss her her sword off of Kagamine's limo form. Then I untie Lizbeth.

She gets up and promptly smacks me. I have to actively resist swinging my sword at her.

"What were you thinking?! You could have been killed, Kirito! I don't care if you're high level, badass swordsman! You can't just go against a red guild!" She screams in my face.

I pull up my health bar, which is less than half gone. "I defeated twelve of twelve, taking minimal damage."

"You. Could. Have. Been. Killed!" She screams, punctuating each word with a swing. I drop my sword so I don't reflexively cut her head off.

"So could you! You weren't supposed to be here!"

"Uh huh! Neither were you! You were supposed to guide us to your parent's house, and help me pick up the pieces in the morning! Instead you go off on your own, giving the both of us a heart attack. Good thing I figured out what you were doing-"

"Good thing? All you did was get captured! If you hadn't been here, Kagamine's would've been in that duel with me! Every single one of them would be up there, and you two would be nice and snug in bed."

"Um, guys?" Asuna says weakly. Lizbeth and I look at her, still huffing from all the shouting.

"He isn't breathing."

As we watch, Kagamine shatters into a million particles. The glasslike faces dance in the dying breeze, blowing past my face and blurring my vision.

With a mounting sense of dread, I look up.

My marker, green for less than a day, has turned red.


	5. Chapter 5: Red Player

I'm sorry this took so long to make. It's a combination of three things. First, the first four chapters were produced during spring break and I had a lot of free time in which to write. Second, since college has started back up, I've been struggling to find any free time, especially with all my midterms. Third, this chapter was hard as hell to write.

I did say that this story was going to update slowly once spring break was over, but I didn't expect two and a half weeks for one chapter!

I'm not sure when the next one is going up, but I'm shooting for before the end of April.

Enjoy!

* * *

All three of us stand there as if frozen in place. Asuna is staring at the blank spot where Kagamine had died. Lizbeth is trembling slightly, staring out into the distance. Me? I'm staring at the end of my life. My marker has turned red, and that can't be reversed. The marker turns slowly as I watch it, as if mocking me with its crimson facets.

"What..." Lizbeth says. "I-I don't understand. It wasn't m-my fault he died, was it?" Her voice quakes and she takes a step back as if there's something in front of her. I snap out of my trance and face her. I almost tell her that it was indeed her fault, but...

I look at my hands, covered in black leather and then back at my marker. My life is effectively over, what with the severely limited roles of a red marked man. What should I do? I look over to Asuna. She's slowly coming to her senses in a lot less of a panic, which is a relief. I look back to wide eyed Lizbeth.

"No, Lizbeth, it was my fault."

She rounds on me. "It's your fault? Of course it is! Everyone knows it!" Her eyes get a manic gleam. "You dumbass! If you hadn't tried to fight them, nobody would've died!"

I duck my head as she draws her mace and attempt to clobber me clumsily. Having little to no combat experience, attempting to attack without utilizing skills isn't going to work against even the weakest of enemies. She continues to scream at me, quickly devolving into unintelligibility. I have to unsheathe my backup sword to deflect her attacks, but I resist doing anything even vaguely offensive. After all, a player killer had fallen to only one strike from me, and Lizbeth was only level one or two. Brushing her with the blade might be enough to send her into the red zone.

She continues to attack me for a good five minutes. At that time the mace in her hands shatters from overuse and she slumps to the ground and starts sobbing. I cautiously reach a hand down and place it on her shoulder in what I hope is a comforting manner. She just sobs harder. I look over to Asuna, but she's still staring at the ground- Aw hell, she's crying too!

I can't deal with crying! Especially when I'm the cause!

"Look, Lizbeth-"

"No!" She yells. Then, more quietly, "Just... Go away, ok?"

I let go of her shoulder. She relaxes a little bit, and for some reason, that reaction hurts.

I turn my head to see Asuna still staring at the ground, or maybe her sword? She must have felt my stare, because she looks up.

"I... I'm useless, aren't I?"

"What? No!" Where did that come from? "You're plenty good at killing monsters and cooking."

She slumps her shoulders. "But I can't protect people. Not even myself."

"You just need more training."

Her eyes look at mine. "But then, won't I end up like you?"

Silence descends. We continue to stare at each other for half a minute.

"I thought so." She breaks eye contact. "So, I... Thanks for your help Kirito, but-"

Three big men in full army regalia pop out of the brush and surround me. Seeing as everyone in the army wears the same mid level gear, I can't judge their levels.

A fourth man walks out of the brush and up to Asuna and Lizbeth. "Are you two alright?"

Asuna nods, but Lizbeth starts crying harder again.

The three men lower their spears at me, one of them almost poking a hole in me. "Drop your weapons!" the one in front of me demands.

I shrug and drop both Black Ice and my backup sword to the ground.

"Including your inventory!"

I silently open my inventory and press the clear inventory button. About half a ton of steel appears out of thin air and lands with a resounding crash that leaves my ears ringing.

As soon as my ears clear, I can hear a lot more voices. I look around and see that the ten survivors of the Laughing Coffin are trussed up, and Agil is talking to Thinker. One of the guards behind me puts cuffs around my wrists and starts pushing me towards Thinker. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Asuna helping Lizbeth to her feet.

"So, here's the vigilante- what happened?" His voice becomes sharp as his mind registers the color of my marker and the cuffs on my wrists.

"One of them decided to threaten two of my friends' lives. He offered me a choice between them, and I took the third option."

"And you killed him."

I bow my head. "Yes. It wasn't on purpose, but that doesn't mean much, now does it."

Thinker shakes his head. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I believe execution is the punishment for red players." I say in the most detached tone I have.

Thinker sighs. "Teleport him back to Rockport with the others. Put him in his own cell though. Right now, we need to get a statement from those two women over there."

I feel my face go blank as I'm led off to an arch that has people pouring back and fourth through it, seemingly out of nowhere. I have heard of these corridors, used to ferry large quantities of people to a specific location, but since they're so hard to get and expensive, only the large guilds like the army can afford them. It's essentially a mas teleport crystal.

It comes out straight into the army's HQ. I look around at all of the curious faces of a crowd gathered to see the arch. I don't see anyone I recognize, but a few of them point to me and whisper to each other. I was at the back of the criminal parade, and I can see the Laughing Coffin members getting jeered at as they pass.

I think that's when it truly sunk in. I'm not going to live to the age of sixteen. I'm going to die because I was stupid and challenged a PK guild. No matter that I won, I was still going to die alongside them.

I avert my eyes and count the paces as I continue to be pushed towards the HQ.

"Hey, isn't that the guy who was on the wall?"

I glance up to see what I would've called a random bystander.

"Hey! It is! It's the Kirito guy!"

People start to push to get a good look at me. The jeers from before were general insults hurled at red players. Now, they turned personal. Very personal.

"Hey! I thought you were cool!"

"Huh, that girl was probably getting blackmailed to be his friend."

"What was her name? Asuna?"

"Yeah, the daughter of that Clearer."

"What was a girl like her hanging around a murderer for?"

"Maybe he killed her?"

I snap at the last one. My arms strain against my cuffs and I round on the last speaker. "For your information, those guys-" I jerk my head at the Laughing Coffin members. "took Asuna hostage. I wasn't given much choice."

The man I had confronted sneers at me. "You red players are all liars. I bet you raped her and killed her to hide the-"

The cuffs snap in two behind me. My arms close around the guy's throat and constrict, my relatively massive strength crushing his windpipe and causing his health bar to drain rapidly.

"I. Protected. Her." I growl, then throw him to the ground. He bounces once before coming to a stop.

I turn back around and face the nearest guard, who is visibly shaking. "I'm going to need to be recuffed. Use two pairs."

"Y-Yessir."

I blink. The guard must be so out of it that he thinks I'm a superior. Not that it matters. I put my hands behind my back, and feel two pairs of cuffs ratchet shut.

The crowd is entirely silent from that point on, and slightly less people have the nerve to stand there watching as I pass.

* * *

I spend ten hours in a featureless cell. The door is made of solid steel, and is the only thing not made of featureless brown rock. Seriously, there's no color variation at all, it's all one depressing grey-brown. Sleep wouldn't come easily, so I spent most of it staring at a perfectly blank ceiling. At least the intact cuffs were off, so I could lie down easily.

The doer opens with a loud groan, and I sit up. In the doorway stands Thinker.

"I've talked to your friends and Agil. They each had some very interesting things to say about your performance yesterday."

I shrug, the remains of my first pair of cuffs clinking against the floor. "It doesn't matter much. I'm dead anyway."

Tinker shakes his head. "You seem remarkably calm about this."

"Not like getting angry is going to help." I fall back to a lying down position. "So, when is my execution?"

"You aren't getting one." Thinker opens his inventory and dumps out seven swords. Black Ice, Thief, the buster sword, the magical gem one, and my three backups are suddenly at my feet. He also puts a few other items I recognized as mine into the pile, like a healing crystal.

I look up at his face, which is set into an unreadable mask. "Why are you giving these to me?"

"First, I have question. Would you consider sending a person to floor 13 all alone an execution of sorts?"

"Well, for most people, yeah, but-"

"You're sentence is to clear floor 13 and make it safe for habitation once again. You will be given no support, and you will not be allowed to return. Any questions?"

I look down at the pile of gear and slowly grab Black Ice. I check its durability, and it's completely repaired.

"Lizbeth, once we told her about your situation, asked for your confiscated weapons so she could repair them." Tinker says, as if reading my mind.

"Who else knows about my sentence?" I say as I start placing my gear in my inventory.

"Your parents, Lizbeth, and Asuna all know, along with several of the members of the army including Agil. Most of the public won't be informed."

Oh, right. Agil. "What's going to happen to Agil now that the Laughing Coffin is done?"

"He's been granted a special pardon, he has to wear a helmet on inside the city at all times, and lives outside the walls. He also has two guards watching him all the time. Trust me, he was glad he got out of the situation, but his quality of life did drop sharply."

I nod. "Fair enough. So, how am I getting out of the city?"

Thinker's mask drops for a second and he grins. "Why, you're going to escape! See, when I leave this cell, I accidentally left it open."

"...Isn't that counterintuitive to nobody knowing?"

"Nobody will know that we let you out, which is what's important. Now, I'm going to go. Try not to seriously injury my men on your way out."

I laugh mirthlessly. "It's a city. I couldn't kill anyone even if I tried."

The opposite wasn't true though. Once you become a red player, the city protection no longer works. So I would be defending myself from a city of immortals while running for my life. Despite myself, I can feel a grin spreading across my face.

"So, I'm basically a solo Clearer now, huh."

Thinker nods. "Good luck, Kirito."

Closes the door, but true to his word, it doesn't lock.

I strap both Thief and Black Ice to my back and put the rest in my inventory. I tuck a teleport crystal and a healing crystal into my pouch at my hip. I take a deep breath and draw Thief. "Okay, time to go to work."

I shove open the door and watch as the guards on either side step backwards to let me go. These two are probably in on it then. I nod as I race past, but they don't respond. I race through the hallways, following the path I used to get into here. Some people are startled as I race past, but nobody gets a good enough look at me to realize something is wrong, or, at least realize exactly what is wrong. I was almost at the exit when somebody had the presence of mind to sound an alarm, but by then there was nothing they could do to stop me. I push open the main doors to find-

That's a large crowd. I stop short and look for a gap, but they form a sheer wall of people that would be impossible to break through.

Of course, I can jump over them, but that's asking for disaster.

"There he is! I knew he was too strong to be locked up! Let's get him!"

I turn to see a burly looking man with a meat cleaver walking towards me menacingly. Wait, so a whole mob had decided to camp outside the army's headquarters just in case I escaped?

...Well, I guess their fears were kind of founded. I wasn't planning on escaping, but they sure succeeded in hindering me.

I turn around and leap straight up and grab hold of the roof overhang. I haul myself up before anyone is able to grab me and pull me back down. Fortunately, the roofs of Rockport are very close together, so I might be able to make it all the way to the teleporter of this city without touching the ground. I apply my full speed and head towards to the center of the city.

Shouts resound in the streets below me, cries spreading the news of my escape barely keeping up with my escape. I keep my eyes forward, locked onto the telepad. Getting distracted would just put me in more danger. Staying inside the city is a bad idea.

Once I'm within two hundred feet of the teleporter, the buildings abruptly stop, and a wide open park area stands between me and my target.

Filling that park are dozens of people all looking around at to find out who is yelling off in the distance. Several fingers are pointed up at him as he watches, and several turn around and start running in a panic.

I hop down from the roofs and bolt for the teleporter. A ring of guards stand in between the pad and me, and each of them has a long spear. That was bad. Their formations and weapons meant that I would be unable to reach the pad on foot, and If I tried jumping over them, their reach would allow them to block me that way as well.

"HEY!"

Every single face turns to see... Asuna? What's she doing here?

Wait, now's my chance!

I dash as fast as my current level would allow and take a flying leap. Only one of the guards catches on in time to notice me and raise his spear, but I can easily dodge only one.

I land on the golden surface of the pad and yell to the floor above us "Teleport, Anaheim!"

One city fades, and another appears. My legs barely find purchase before I'm taking off like a rocket. I've heard some horror stories about attempting to leave a pad before the teleport was finished, but I've never encountered a problem.

There aren't any guards stationed around the pad but I'm sure the ones from level 10 are coming through as I run for my life.

Ironically, the wall isn't very good at keeping people in. After tearing through the housing district I had memorized these past two weeks, I had only to climb a single set of stairs and leap off the other side.

Several of the guards saw me, but what were they going to do? If I was anyone else, I might as well have committed suicide. Even if they wanted me back, they would risk themselves to both wildlife and me by coming outside the walls.

Despite myself, I smile. For the first time, I was going to be free. I was going to be able to fight and Clear! My dream had come true!

I let loose a laugh that probably echoed all the way back to Anaheim.

* * *

Let me explain the marker system in more detail.

Everyone starts out as a green marked person. For the first five years of your life, your marker can't turn any other color, and there are other restrictions so that you can't exploit that fact. I'll get into it if it ever becomes relevant. Then, you turn six and you get your first update. Now, you can wield practice weapons that can't hurt anything above level 2, and you can turn orange if you attempt to hurt someone. This lasts until you're fifteen and a half, and then you get your second update. That's where I am. Obviously, you can become a murderer after your second update.

Now, cities only protect green person totally. A green marked person in a city can't fall below half health. Orange markers can be beaten within a pixel of their lives, but still can't be killed. There was a case where an orange person was driven to that state and then forced out of the city, where he got eaten by some monster. Now, orange people are criminals and are treated as such. If a green marker gets rough within city limits, he might be reduced to orange status, or if he steals, or any of a variety of crimes.

Ironically, once a person changes color, the rest of everyone is able to wail on them without punishment. For example, an orange person can be beaten ruthlessly until he turns green. There was an incident with that as well, but I don't remember it properly. Red marked people though, they have strange rules. Within a city, they're fair game. Green markers can freely kill red markers as long as its within city limits. That's why the crowd was willing to try to take my down in Rockport. They had nothing to fear, I couldn't kill them and they could kill me without penalty. Outside the walls of any city is a different matter. If you are not attacked by the red person prior to your killing blow, you become a red marked person yourself. If they attack you, or, if you're married, your wife and family, you can freely attack them as if you were inside the city walls.

Since I stabbed Kagamine without him striking a single blow, it was seen as a murder, and so I got a red marker.

As of is time, there is no known way to get rid of a red marker. It's a permanent stain on your reputation. Markers can be hidden by hats though, so if it's absolutely necessary, I can risk my life to go into a city and hope I'm not recognized.

Duels are the exception to the marker system. Inside a duel, two green players can attempt to kill each other within the city limits. Each duel involves two or more people, and all contestants have to agree on the rules. In my duel, we chose orange level health point drain (down to one HP) so nobody died, but it would take more than one hit to be disqualified and summarily knocked out. Anyone without their second update is unable to duel, but there is a way for five through fifteens to practice in an arena, but those duels are always green marker matches with blunt training weapons and the one hit rule on.

The important thing to remember is that duels can only be started if all duelists accept. If a single one decides to give up, the whole duel is cancelled. If the remaining people want to try to make a new duel, they can, but they have to start over from scratch.

Once a duel is initiated, a force field pops up, making it impossible for outside interference.

Huh, those rules are the ones I've been taught, but then how did Kagamine get out of the circle without interrupting the duel?

I'll have to think about this more.

Either way, now that I'm outside the walls of any city, I don't have to worry about being attacked. Most people are more sensible than to attack a red marker without being provoked, seeing as under the army's rule, red markers warrant the death penalty, and under the rule I just described above, attacking me in my sleep would give them a red marker.

No, I just had to worry about monsters, and for some reason, they are all avoiding me. I guess they don't forgot easily. I'm currently up in a tree watching the stars peek between this floor and the next one up.

Despite the fact that all I would see is flat grey metal, I look upwards. "I wonder if the hundredth level has a roof. Maybe it has sun all the time."

I let my arm hang down and close my eyes. Maybe answers will come, but for now, I need sleep.

And for the first time in a while, the darkness of sleep came easily and happily.

* * *

It takes me a minute to place where I am when my eyes open and it's already light. A quick glance to either side places me up in a tree about two miles away from the walls of Anaheim. I carefully slide out of the tree and land softly. Today, my journey truly starts.

I unsheathe one of my backup swords. No sense in wasting my good weapons just yet, not knowing when or even if I can get them repaired. Facing west, I take one last look back at the city of floor twelve before turning back to the challenge ahead of me.

I had sorted through my gear last night, and found that there was a map of this floor in its entirety, probably from back when we had made it all the way to the thirties. It clearly has a few things marked, like the dungeon entrance and several nests where the minsters appeared. On the cylinder that leads into the next level is the word BOSS. According to a footnote on the bottom of the map, this floor was like floor five in that no matter how hard they searched, Clearers were unable to cleanse this area of monsters. I put the map display away and continue walking, with only a slight correction in direction.

Time to clear this level.

* * *

I'm sitting in a cell. Why? Because I did something stupid.

Why is it that everything I do recently turns out poorly? Someone tattoo "Idiot" on my forehead already.

Okay, yes, I did get to level 13 while working with Kirito, but that was because he saved me every time I was about to die.

My cell door opens and a large man steps inside. I look up to see Thinker frowning down at me.

"Asuna, please don't take this the wrong way, but what were you thinking?"

I shrug. "I was helping him escape."

Thinker rests his face in his hand. "And, in doing so, you raised suspicion about yourself. It hasn't even been a full day, and some people are speaking the rumors that you were helping him escape."

"I was."

"Yes, and that's a problem. See, aiding and abetting red marked people is a crime, just not one that turns your marker orange. Having the daughter of one of the high ups of the foremost clearer guild publicly seen helping him... Let's just say people are getting restless."

I fold my hands up and give him a condescending stare. Even though he's a hardened member of the army, he still gets edgy. My stare was known to do that to people. "I couldn't just let him get recaptured, now could I?"

Thinker shakes his head. "You could have. I had my men already heading to get him and 'accidentally' let him go."

I shift in my seat. "And how was I to know that?"

Thinker slams a hand down on the table, causing me to jump. "Asuna, you weren't supposed to be on floor ten at all! You were supposed to be inside your own guild hall, under the protection of Kuradeel!" He growls. Slowly, he calms himself down with deep breaths and straightens up. "Sorry about that. My life's been a bit harsh recently, what with all of these developments involving Kirito. It's hard to stand there and take flak for rules you didn't create."

I nod. "Sorry for causing you trouble." I curl my hands into fists. "It won't happen again."

"I'm sure that it will happen again." Thinker says, a smile creeping onto his face. "After all, Kirito seems dead set on actually Clearing floors. Once he clears floor 13, you should join him."

I blink. "Wait, me? I'm not strong enough!" I say, panic starting to rise in my throat.

"That's why I got you a party." Thinker smirks. He steps away from the door and lets me see that there are four people standing outside my cell. The first is Lizbeth. She has on some pretty heavy armor and has a mace strapped to her hip. Next is Klein, who has the biggest smirk on his face and a Ziatchi strapped to his hip. Third is Agil, who I have only met once. He has a giant axe buckled to his back and is busy strapping a helmet on his head. Fourth-

"Why is Kuradeel here?!" I shout pointing a finger in his direction.

Thinker looks down at me with a confused expression "He's your bodyguard. Of course he's going with you."

Kuradeel smiles. "It is my pleasure to accompany you, my princess."

My eye twitches. "I told you never to call me that. Ever."

Klein clasps his hands together and rocks onto one leg. "Aw, such a cute couple!"

I attempt to deck him, but Thinker grabs the back of my shirt in time to stop my attack from doing more than sending a gust of air in his direction.

Even Lizbeth has a smirk by this point. It gets wiped off her face by a noise like a lightning strike. Every single person in this cramped space simultaneously gets a message.

"Floor 13 has been cleared. Teleportation to floor 13, Galetown, has been opened."

All six of us are frozen. I slide my eyes from the message to see mixed looks all around.

It's Thinker who breaks the silence. "He... already cleared 13. How long has your guild been trying to clear that?" He asks Klein.

Klein closes his message and bends over laughing. "I knew it! That idiot is going to surpass even Heathcliff at this rate!" He collapses to his knees and starts to pant between his laughter. "We've been trying... for two years... and he does it... in three weeks!"

Klein starts getting more messages as, presumably, other Clearers get over their shock and start trying to figure out who finally Cleared it.

I turn to Thinker. "I would like my sword back now."

He opens his inventory and pulls out my weapons. I collect them with haste and strap the sword to my side.

I march to the door and face the rest of my assigned party.

"I'm going after Kirito. Who's coming?"

Lizbeth motions with her mace. Klein stands back up and flashes his signature grin. Agil stands there with his arms crossed. Kuradeel-

"Are you sure? I mean, back in Anaheim-" He starts.

"Does me leaving to find Kirito hurt your feelings?" I ask, cutting him off.

He gets the slimiest smile on his face. "Yes! I'm glad you see it my-"

"Good! I'm not wasting another second. Kuradeel, feel free to stay behind. Let's go."

I march out the door, and all four follow me, one whimpering something about how it isn't fair.

I lead what I had determined was my group straight to the pad and step onto it.

"Teleport, Galetown!" I yell.

In a flash of light, I appear in... a bustling city?

All five of us look around in bewilderment.

"What? How did all these people get here so fast?" I cry, not comprehending.

Klein walks up to a blacksmith. The blacksmith turns to face Klein and asks "Yes?" before he can even open his mouth.

"When did you get here?" Klein asks bluntly.

The blacksmith seems confused by the question for a minute. "I've always been here."

Klein stands there dumbstruck long enough for the blacksmith to get tired and walk away.

"What?" He yells. "That's not possible! Kirito literally just unlocked this floor!"

The hairs on the back of my neck prick up. I spin around and draw my weapon-

"Kirito!" I shout.

Kirito steps out of the shadows and sheathes his sword onto his back. "What are you guys doing here?" He says, a mildly disturbed look on his face as he scans the street.

"Looking for you." Klein says. "Looks like we found you."

"No, I just followed to yelling." Kirito says, now with his back towards the party. "You guys better go back. This city is haunted."

"Haunted?" Kuradeel laughs. "Right. That's not true."

Kirito turns halfway around. "Who the hell are you?"

"He's my bodyguard." I growl. "And what do you mean by haunted?"

"Well..."

* * *

It took me less than a day to clear a dungeon. That's got to be a record. I guess it wasn't only me (I had help), and I should probably count the time used to create the map, but still.

I had left the safety of the walls behind only 24 hours earlier. And now the next floor was open.

There was a large creature at the end of the dungeon, called the scorpion Queen. She was level 21 and had three of those Death Scorps guarding her. The Death Scorps were easily tricked into stabbing each other with their paralysis poison, and thankfully it left me with only one monster to fight. She may have been more powerful than the other scorpions, but I didn't get much of a chance to find out. See, the problem with all of these scorpions is that they have these weak little tails to support their main offensive weapon. All I did was raise one sword to block and use another to slice the tail off at the small joint, dodge the claws, and it was in the bag. When I cleared the so called boss room, I found a new door on the opposite side of the room that I had entered from. Through that door, I had entered Galetown.

Galetown had been entirely deserted when I got there. Seeing a city completely empty is a nerve-wracking feeling, let my say. II headed for the middle of the city and found the teleporter locked down with a glowing panel asking to unlock it. When I pressed the button, it had made a large announcement that floor thirteen was unlocked.

It had also unleashed the ghosts.

As soon as the announcement faded, I had turned around and found myself face to face with a female I had never met before. Seeing as a still had a sword in my hand, I may have accidentally poked her, and she just disappeared! Since then, I've been poking these people, and they all just disappear. Even weirder, they don't talk unless I speak to them. The entire city is silent except for me.

"Until I met up with you guys." I say. "These people don't even put up a fight, don't seem to react to me trying to kill them. I accidentally stabbed a mother, and her children almost didn't even notice!"

Klein frowns. "But, we're inside a city. They shouldn't be able to be killed under any circumstance."

I look at Klein. "Maybe the citywide protection is off?"

He nods slowly. "We should test it."

Four pairs of eyes turn to me.

"I can't help! I'll kill you guys with a brush from my blade!"

Klein snorts. "Sure you will. Hey, give me your best shot." He settles into a blocking stance.

Instead of drawing my sword, I raise a fist and charge at him. His eye widen and he switches his defensive strategy, but it's too late. My fist hits his gut-

He goes sprawling backwards to the ground, exactly half his HP remaining, along with a warning floating above his head about attacking green players.

It takes Klein a few minutes to catch his breath, the overflow from the damage I dealt him turned into sheer knockback force. He raises his left arm and says, "Yeah, protection's still on."

Lizbeth takes two strides up to me and smacks me hard. "I can't believe you did that!" She says angrily. "You could've killed him!"

"Yeah." I rub my face. "But I didn't, which is what is important."

Lizbeth narrows her eyes. "Setting that aside, what does that mean about all these people?"

I smirk. "Obviously ghosts. They aren't protected by city rules, they disappear on the slightest touch, and they're way too quiet to be a bustling city."

Asuna rolls her eyes. "That's the stupidest explanation ever. They're not ghosts."

I turn to her. "And why not?"

"Ghosts have at minimum two health bars, and nobody has ever seen one lower than floor twenty five." She says matter-of-factly.

Kuradeep (or whatever his name is) turns to Asuna and starts whining. "Asuna, you really shouldn't tell guild secrets like that."

Asuna sighs and ignores him. "So, what's next?"

"We clear out the gh- the not-ghosts and get people up here." I say. "Until people inhabit this floor, it's prone to be retaken by the monsters." I yawn.

Lizbeth points to an inn. "Let's hole up for the night. It's getting late anyway."

Reluctantly, I agree. The innkeeper is charging surprisingly little for each room, so I get five, one for each of us. For some reason, I had the crazy feeling that I should just stab the innkeeper and take the rooms for the night instead of paying, but I dismiss that feeling and trudge up to bed.

* * *

The next morning, we all get up and buy something to eat. Kuradeep keeps eyeing me with suspicion, but aside form that, the food is nice.

"Kirito," Asuna begins. "We are joining your party."

"Party? What party?" I say. "It's not like I'm actually doing this officially or anything."

"Well, too bad, we're forming a new clearer guild right here, right now." She stands up in her seat and places her hands on the table, causing her small frame to loom over us.

I sip my drink. "You know it's going to be danger-"

A butter knife flashes white and almost stabs my nose. I track my eyes up to see Asuna glaring at me.

"Fine." I grumble. "But I'm not responsible for any of your deaths."

She removes the knife from my face and sits back down. "So, what should we call our guild?" She asks cheerily. It's scary how fast she can switch emotions.

I tune them out and continue eating my breakfast. A few other customers come in...

I jump out of my seat, my right hand groping for my currently unequipped sword.

Lizbeth, who somehow had more prudence than me, had her mace out. "What! Who!" She yells.

I point to one of the newcomers. "I... I stabbed her yesterday!"

Asuna starts visibly shifting in her seat, and Klein draws his sword from its sheathe.

I deftly draw my sword out of my menu without taking my eyes off of the mysterious woman. When Black Ice was in my hand, I start approaching her slowly.

As soon as I'm within ten feet of her, he head snaps to point at me. She doesn't say anything, just stares.

"Excuse me." I say. "But how are you not dead?"

I hear several facepalms behind me, but I ignore them.

The woman looks puzzled. "I've always been here." She finally responds, and then she goes back to staring.

Everyone else in 'my' group stands there silent as rocks until Asuna decides to break the silence.

"What."


	6. Chapter 6: Dragons

Honestly, I had wanted to spend a little bit of time investigating these ghost apparition things. After breakfast, Asuna and Liz had warped back to level ten, Kugareel had followed soon after. Klein and I had decided to search the city, but he was called off by his guild, something about a PK guild. That left me with two options. I could search an entire city by myself, or go out beyond the walls and level. Not knowing what there is out there is pretty dangerous though.

On the outside of the walls, treacherous mountain terrain makes forward movement more or less upward movement. The city of Galetown is built into a valley, and I'm pretty sure that the walls are unnecessary, given that anything that could successfully scale these sheer cliffs could probably scale the twenty foot walls surrounding this city.

My hand gropes around and finds another handhold. I silently congratulate myself on having put enough points into strength to allow my to do this. Otherwise this would be one hell of a fall when my strength ran out. I tilt my head upwards and estimate the distance up. About seven hundred feet?

I look down. That is a mistake.

It takes me a full minute with my eyes closed to stop digging my fingers deep enough into the rock to start climbing again.

So, looking down is out. I rack my brain for other times that had happened to me.

"Huh. I don't think I've ever been up this high." I mutter out loud.

I let go with my left hand and reach up to search for another outcropping to grip. It comes across a patch of vines. I slowly try pulling the vines away from the wall, but they don't budge. I put a little bit of weight on them, and still, solid in place. I wrap my hand in the vines and take a step up with my right foot.

Suddenly, the vines come to life and twist around my arm even further. My eyes widen and I reach for my sword with my free hand, letting go of the wall completely.

My feet remain planted in their holds, but the only reason I haven't toppled over is the vine wrapping around me. I finally draw my sword and slash at the base of the plant.

This obviously didn't turn out as I planned. Yes, the vines died, but as they disintegrated into shiny bits (and an xp window pops up) I start to topple over and plummet back down the cliff.

From my perspective, the ground is currently upwards. Looking upwards, the ceiling is falling towards me very fast. It's a very sharp ceiling filled with rocky outcroppings called stalagmites or stalactites or something.

I wonder why my life is so messed up as one particularly sharp one gets closer to me.

Then, a blur of blue and suddenly I'm not falling. It takes me a minute to catch my breath, but once I do, I sit up.

Flying. I'm flying. Above me, it almost feels like I can touch the smooth stone of the floor above. Below me... I'm on top of a blue creature, roughly bird looking-

A dragon? But why would a dragon save me?

"Hey!"

I turn in my seat to find a young girl looking up at me with a pouting face. "Who said you could ride my dragon?"

I look between her and the dragon. Well, she was riding it, and unless she fell and this dragon is here to catch anyone falling, yeah, she's actually a dragon tamer.

"Sorry? I just fell off of that cliff. It wasn't like I planned on falling to my death today."

She crosses her arms. "Well, I don't give rides for free."

I sigh. "So, how much do you want?"

She blinks. "On no, I don't want your money. I want you to play with me!"

She beams a smile filled with innocence. I take a quick glance to make sure my marker was still red and I wasn't hallucinating. "You realize that I'm not the safest person you could play with."

She shrugs. "You owe me a debt. Pay up."

I grumble. "Sure, sure."

She beams and extends her hand, her reddish brown hair flapping in the breeze. "I'm Silica!"

"Kirito."

"It's been a while since we had a visitor on this floor. Are you the guy who unlocked the teleporter?"

I nod. "I'm a budding Clearer. It's my job to kill monsters and make more floors available for use." I rub my shoulder. "Hey, do you know why the central city of this floor is haunted?"

She squints at me. "It's not haunted. It's inhabited by Enpesees."

"Enpesees?"

"Yeah! I'll introduce you to my grandfather, he knows a lot about them, and other things!"

I take a glance off the side of the dragon. Yeah, pretty steep fall. I wouldn't survive that without a dragon of my own. I right myself and look around. This floor is actually pretty nice, mountains stretching across the landscape and making for beautiful scenery. Silica points to a mountain roughly ten kilometers away. "We live on the other side of that mountain."

"Isn't it hard to get there?"

She looks at me like I had just grown another head. "Not when you have a dragon." She pauses thoughtfully. "For that matter, where's your dragon?"

I shake my head. "I don't have one."

Her face turns into a look of pure astonishment. "But how do you get around?"

I point to my feet.

She looks at my boots and frowns, but refrains from commenting. We fly around the peak she had indicated earlier, and her village comes into sight. The side of the mountain is carved out, and a multilayered village is set up before my eyes.

Silica expertly guides her dragon down into a spot where other dragons are being held. I watch as she ties up her dragon, pats him on the nose and skips up to me.

"So, let's go see my grandpa!"

She grabs my hand and starts dragging me forward. Villagers that seem a lot more solid than those Enpesees watch us go past, a mixture of curiosity and wariness evident on their faces. I just allow myself to be dragged wherever Silica was taking me. I'm pretty sure that this area didn't count as a city, so I should be able to defend myself in here.

Silica leads me to what appears at first glance to be a ramshackle hut built into the wall. Through the windows, I can see the stone is carved out so deep that the size of the entrance seems absurdly small.

Silica turns around and waves her hands at me. "I live here with grandpa and my family."

I smile. "Looks like a nice place you got here."

She nods enthusiastically and opens the door. She beckons me to follow when I hesitate to enter.

Inside, I can really see the depth of this place. It's basically a cave furnished to look like a basement of a building on one of the lower levels. Silica runs right around a corner and disappears before I can stop her. Instead of continuing after her, I decide to wait for her to come back. Hopefully, she'll notice I'm not here soon-

Oh, there she is.

"See? I told you!" She says up to an old man. The man looks at me as if sizing me up. I self-consciously rub my hair. He has a happy air about him, like he was one of those caretakers that watch children on lower floors. Kind, caring, that sort of feeling.

"So, the announcement is true. Someone cleared the dungeon between is floor and the last again." He walks shakily forward. "I take it you were on the team that made it through?"

"Uh... Yes." I was the sole member of that team, but I was still a member, right?

Silica tugs on my arm. "Tell us about it!"

She flops down onto the floor. The old man crosses his legs and sits down on the carpeted floors as well.

I shrug and follow suit. Silica slides up next to me and looks up at me expectantly.

"So, where do you want me to start?" I ask playfully.

"At the beginning!"

"Uh... Ok. At the start of the universe, there was a large explosion-"

"No, not that far back. When you started your adventure!"

I look at the old man. He glances at my eyes, then his flick to my marker and then back to mine. I give a subtle nod.

"Well, I decided to leave the city on the twelfth floor and try to clear a dungeon..."

* * *

We talked for some time, me regaling Silica and the old man, whose name turned out to Griever, with a heavily edited tale of how I got here. I added in such things as a raiding party that had left while I had decided to explore the mountains, a giant wasp, and a legendary sword that I was unable to reach. That last part was a dream I had once, and I always wanted to brag that I had found a rare weapon, so...

Silica in turn told me about dragons. In these mountains, dragons roost in caves that are prevalent. The entire floor is apparently covered with mountains, and the city in the center is the only patch of truly flat land on the entire floor. Griever would chime in from time to time to correct her on little details.

Dragons are apparently social creatures that hang out together in packs, but ones that get to big and threaten the food supply are kicked out and end up on the far edges of the map. Thus, most of the dragon rider clans (this is clan Wu Tang, which Griever seemed to find funny for some reason) stayed in the inner portions of this floor. Anything that can survive out nearer to the edge is dangerous enough to take down a typical dragon rider.

Only a very few people up here aren't dragon riders, since it's the best way to get around. At the age of ten, a dragon rider is given an dragon egg, and much to my shock, receive their update at that time. My first thought was honestly that I felt let down for waiting until fifteen. Then, the egg normally hatched within a year. When it did, the dragon imprints on the person holding the egg. The rider takes care of the dragon until it matures and can be ridden. I had heard of taming horses before, and this seemed remarkably similar while still being a lot more complicated.

Maybe I should get myself a dragon.

Griever stands up after a while and excuses himself. I watch him leave around the corner before Silica distracts me again. "I have question!" She whispers loud enough for the entire valley to hear.

"Ok, what's your question?" I say in a normal voice that doesn't carry as far.

"What are the lower floors like?"

I purse my lips. "Flatter. They still have hills, and floor four has a few mountains, but this trumps that area by far. People are able to walk for miles without too much difficulty. There's a lot more people down there too. You can't step inside a city without meeting someone."

I stop talking as I remember those Enpesees. They did technically inhabit the city, so maybe that wasn't so different. I'm about to correct myself when Silica sighs.

"I wish I could meet people. Enpesees are soooo boring. All they do is repeat the same three things at you over and over and over again. That's why I was scouting around the city. Since you unlocked it, people are sure to come!"

I bite my lip to keep from telling her that those Enpesees would and have freaked out anyone who had encountered them from the lower floors.

The door mounted on the front of the cave clicks. Silica jumps to her feet and rushes the door before it even opens, and by the time she gets there, two weary looking people stand in the door. A tall, lanky man an axe strapped to his back, and a short, stocky redhead that looked like she spent most of her time smirking.

The man catches Silica as she jump and swings her around. "Hey! How's my little girl?"

Silica giggles.

The woman notices me. "Hello."

I nod. "Hello."

She walks over and offers her hand. "I'm Margery."

"Kirito."

"I haven't seen you before. Where are you from?"

"Born on the tenth floor. Recently cleared a dungeon and let people back up here." I glance around. "At, least, that's what I thought I was doing. Seems there were already people on this floor."

Margery nods. "Silica's grandfather, Griever, was around when humans occupied floor thirty. He claims to have been around when everyone was confined to floor one, but that's absurd." She smiles. "So, did Silica drag you here?"

"Well, I kinda lost my grip on a mountain and she caught me. I figured I owed her a debt." I stick out my tongue a little and gently rap the side of my head.

Margery laughs. "Sounds like her. I bet she waited until the last second as well."

"I didn't have time to check." I smirk.

She turns and becomes me over to the man. He stops swinging Silica around and staggers a bit as he tries to stop his eyes spinning. Margery patiently waits until his eyes focus.

"This is Kirito. Kirito, this is my husband, Reiner."

Reiner extends his hand. "Nice to meet you."

I return the handshake. "Nice to meet you as well."

He turns to Margery. "I'm going to cook up these steaks. You get Silica washed up, alright?"

Margery turns to me. "Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Oh, no, I would be intruding."

"Silica invited you here, and to be honest, I'm curious as to your story. I don't think it would be an intrusion."

I open my mouth to reject, but a brilliant smell wafts from the kitchen and my stomach growls loud enough for her to hear.

She claps her hands together. "It's decided. You'll be eating with us." She points towards the corner everyone keeps disappearing behind. "If you walk down that hallway and enter the second door on the left, that's the dining area. Please wait there, if you would."

She heads down the straight hallway that I had noticed first.

Left all alone, I shrug and do as she asks. I round the corner and find twenty door lining a hallway.

"Second on the left." I mutter. "So, that means this one."

I pull it open to find a low table with a blanket skirt. It's too low for chairs, and I don't see any chairs around, so my guess is that you sit on the floor. On that note, it looks like it could have about eight people around it.

I sit down in the far corner of the table and flop backwards.

Huh. They painted the ceilings. I trace the intricate blue lines weaving in and around each other organically, crisscrossing back and forth to form pictures that almost resembled something, but didn't quiet.

The door opens and I sit up. Griever enters and closes the door behind him. When I look at his eyes, he looks a lot less grandfathery and a lot more scary. The shaking in his legs is gone as well.

"Kirito, I have something you need to see."

He walks over to me, and his newfound presence makes me want to move away from him. Before I have the chance, he plops down next to me. He opens his inventory and rapidly punches in a few buttons faster than I thought possible at his age. Before I know it, a book is sitting on the table n front of us.

He points to the book. "That is something you will want to have."

"What is it?"

"A book."

I roll my eyes. "I got that. What's in it?"

"Words."

I resist the urge to slap myself in the face. "Okay then. So, why do I want it again?"

He smiles. "It's a one of a kind book. Kind of odd, if you think about it, since it used to be the most prevalent book out there." He shakes his head. "Don't let anyone see you with that book. It has the truth." He looks at me in the eyes, and his stare locks me in place. "Silica said you were interested in finding out about NPCs?"

I nod, eyes barely moving.

"It's all in that book. Don't show it to anyone though, or else you might be killed for owning it."

Both of our head snap up as the door clicks, announcing its opening. Griever sweeps the book off the desk into my lap. I quickly scramble to put the book into my inventory.

Silica burst into the room and Griever is suddenly back in grandpa mode.

Soon after, her parents arrive and we all eat. Griever told us all some tales that were either tall or straight out lies, or else this guy was a Clearer when he was my age. Actually, given what he had supposedly given to me, I wouldn't be surprised if that last one was true. I resist the urge to open my inventory and check it, which was growing by the minute.

In turn, I repeated my tales to them, and Silica helped out with some portions, actually improving my story somewhat.

After the food was gone, filling our stomachs, Reiner offered to fly me back to the city. I accepted his offer and we were off in less than ten minutes. When we got airborne, he half turned in his saddle and looked at me.

"So, how did you get a red marker?"

I sigh. "Stupid accident, trying to protect someone. It was a red player who was holding two of my friends hostage by a red player. I'm a little too high level to be running through murders without abandon though. He hadn't hurt anyone, so..."

"Now you bear the mark of someone who has taken another's future."

I grimace. "It sounds even worse when you say it like that."

He turns back to face forward. "You said you cleared the dungeon leading to this floor?"

Startled by the abrupt change, it takes me a second to answer. "Uh, yeah. It-"

"Who was in your party? Over the years, we've tried to kill that demon bug, but it was impossible. Did you all level to eighteen before attempting that?"

"I... I don't know how high everyone else in my party is, but I leveled up to twenty three-"

He turns around in his seat again. Silence prevails, only interrupted by the swoosh of the downbeat of the wings. Somehow, this dragon wasn't jerking up and down with every stroke of its wings.

"Level 23?" He shakes his head. "That's absurd. I think you could've solo'd the boss with that level."

I keep my face straight. Maybe a little to straight, because-

"Did you actually solo it?" He face turns from shock to awe. "I used to dream of soloing a dungeon, but I was never solid enough in my skills to attempt it." He turns back to face forwards. "After all, once I was high enough level to even attempt it, I already had a wife and a little girl to take care of. You're lucky you don't have ties in place yet. You can still be a little reckless."

I shrug, a movement entirely lost on his back. "It's not like I don't have family, I just want to see what's on floor 100."

Reiner laughs. "Floor one hundred. Lofty goals there."

"I've wanted to join a clearer guild since I can remember, and my goal has always been the top." I grin. "I'm off to a good start, wouldn't you say?"

His smile turns into a thin line. "Does Griever know of your goals?"

"Yeah."

"Then he probably tried to give you something he claimed held 'The Truth.'"

"Uh..."

"It's a load of garbage. It places us all in a ridiculous world where we are all fake, and our real minds a re far away... It's been a while since he showed it to me, when he and I both thought I was going to do great things."

I think about the look in Griever's eyes when he was talking to me. He certainly didn't seem like he was bluffing. I don't say this out loud though.

"My suggestion is to throw that book away. Despite what he says, it isn't the last copy. He makes them in his room back home."

He pulls on the reins of his mount and it descends to a open space that looks suspiciously designed for dragons to land.

"Thanks for the ride."

He nods. "Good luck on your adventuring. If your ever short a party member, look me up!"

He swoops up into the night and I turn towards the entry gates. Maybe I should rent a room?

I walk to the nearest motel and head to the counter. I ring a bell and someone- an Enpesee- walks out of the back and quickly exchanges money with me in return for a room. As I trudge up the stairs, a notification appears in my inbox. I poke the air absentmindedly.

Silica has sent me a friend request. I press accept without a second thought.

I lie in the rented bed and close my eyes. Today had been long, filled with the smell of dragons, and informative. My consciousness fades away as sleep overtakes me.

* * *

When I wake up, I feel like I'm being smashed into the ground. My mouth has something covering it, my back itches, and I'm... I'm naked, for some reason. I normally put at least something on in my sleep, and didn't I go to bed with my armor still on?

Something to my left beeps. As I strain to turn my head, it starts beeping louder.

Several voices start yelling. One approaches and presses his hand to my eye, drawing a thin black tube-

OW! Bright!

"Shit, he's waking up."

"But he's supposed to be under for another hour at least!"

"Put him back in his tank, let's get him back in!"

"We can't, we're still patching his software!"

I groan, which shuts everyone up for a good while.

Finally, someone speaks. "What is wrong with this kid? This is the fourth or fifth time he's caused a problem, right?"

"Only third. His update, that log out glitch that we're currently fixing, and today. Three."

A female voice I hadn't head before chimes in. "How did you get hired if you can't even do basic math?"

"Wait, no, there was four, you missed one."

"Three."

"Four."

"Check the records!"

"No, you check-"

"Enough!"

The one voice grumbles. "So, he's allergic to both sedation drugs we have on hand, and he's waking up."

"We need to get him to go back to sleep."

In my blurry vision, I see a big shape looming between me and the lights overhead. "I think I can make him go to sleep real easy. Just hit his temple-"

"No, Jack, if you hurt him the director will be on your ass."

"Jack" sighs. "Fine, but I can guarantee he isn't allergic to my method."

"I call asphyxia and blood loss to the brain being allergic to violence." the woman snarks.

The looming shape moves away slightly. "Then what do you suppose we do?"

I open my mouth, but all that comes out is a gurgle. Why do I feel so heavy?

I try to raise my arm, but it almost feels glued to the surface of whatever I am lying on.

The calmest voice I had heard so far starts up. "Alright, here's the plan. I'm going to bring him back to the pod chamber. You four go monitor everyone else for abnormalities."

The woman snaps back. "We do that every day. It's boring."

"Then change the color scheme again."

I suddenly feel movement as the table thing I am on starts moving. I get moved to an area with lots of blue pods everywhere. Hey, these remind me on those times... Wait, didn't that one guy say something... My brain is too foggy to pull together anything coherent. Maybe if someone would remove all the weights off my body!

"I don't understand why, but you keep getting out. Are you doing this on purpose? I did send you a warning to stop doing this." He sighs. "Well, I guess it couldn't have npbeen your fault this time."

Something make a horrible sound like a parrot being choked. The man leans over and starts speaking in a more authoritative method. "Linux here."

A scratchy voice appears out of nowhere. "His update is done. Send him back."

Linux turns and hits a few buttons out of sight. "Please, don't come back. I already have too any reports to write as it is."

My eyes blur as something starts moving me upwards with a jerk. I try to move, but I still felt like I was being dragged to the depths by some unseen force. After about five seconds, I start tilting over-

I land in a world of blue, a strange substance enters my mouth, and I realize that the weight is lifted. Something grabs my back and pulls me back down deeper in the ooze. I can feel something warming up against my back as the faint noises continue.

Someone outside of my tank or pod or whatever they called it presses some buttons and I fade from life again.

My eyes open to find sunlight streaming though my window. I sit up and find myself exactly where I thought I was sleeping, still dressed in full battle gear. I stretch my muscles out and head downstairs.

There, I find a very interesting sight. Silica is sitting on the counter that the innkeeper is sitting behind, while Klein, Asuna, and Lizbeth all are talking to her.

"Hey!" I call, and four heads swivel in my direction.

"Kirito!" Lizbeth runs up to me and grabs my shoulders. "That little girl keeps telling us that she's your girlfriend. That's not true, is it?"

"Huh? No!" I jerk away from her grip. "Silica, what are you telling-"

She tackles me with a hug and buries her face in my shirt. I look around bewilderedly to find three looks of varying amusement at my predicament.

"Silica, we only just met. I don't think it would be right to go claiming that, even if that's how you feel."

She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. "But I saved you! Like a knight saving a princess!"

I swear Klein's head snapped up and he started paying attention at those words.

"Yes, but-"

"Do you already have a girlfriend then?"

I open my mouth to say yes just to dissuade her, but two images flash through my mind: one of Asuna poking my eye out and one of Lizbeth smashing my head in. I glance in their direction... Yup, both look like they're waiting for my answer.

How come I can solo a boss easily, but when it comes to these two I always chicken out?

"No, I don't. I'm... kind of working on it."

Silica deflates a bit. "Oh."

I smile. "Hey, it's not like I'm ungrateful for you saving me. Wanna be friends?"

Her smile returns. "Okay!"

Lizbeth marches over to me. Silica sees the murderous look in her eyes and wisely decides to go bug Klein. Lizbeth grabs me by the collar and hoists me up in the air.

"Uh, been working on your strength stat?" I say meekly.

She slams me up against a wall. "Who is this girl you are 'working on'?"

"Uh-"

"I don't want excuses either. I'm not a little girl you can trick with some wordplay."

Over her shoulder, I can see Asuna fingering the hilt of her sword. Why, oh why, do I get into these situations.

"Obviously, you can be tricked. That wasn't the truth, it was the easiest way out of the situation."

"Then what is the truth?"

"I... I don't have a girlfriend."

Asuna starts standing right behind Lizbeth, I'm sure that Lizbeth should've sensed her presence by now.

She lets go of my collar and I flop to the floor. Lizbeth shoots Asuna a dirty look as she stalks away.

So, can I go kill something now? I'm sure combatting something ten levels higher than me would be less stressful than this.

I stand up only to have Klein lean against the wall next to me. "You're really good with the ladies, you know?"

I stare at him with dead eyes. "What do you mean? That was a disaster. I almost got my head caved in."

He nods. "You have three girls gunning for you, and you managed not to ruin your chances with any of them. I commend you."

I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor. "What? That's not... but... I'm not that kind of guy!"

Klein places his hand on my shoulder. "That's too bad. It's such a shame to waste such talent."

He pushes away from the wall leaving me feeling even more confused than ever.

"Why can't people be easy to understand?" I mutter.

* * *

Tensions remained pretty high between Asuna and Lizbeth until that bodyguard of Asuna's showed up. What was his name? Kumafeels? Either way, I didn't get to hear what he said, but I do know that after Asuna clubbed him, they started smiling again and talking.

Klein draws his sword. "So, what are we doing about this floor? We can't leave these people-"

"Enpesees!" Silica says.

"Right, those. What are we doing about them?"

"I figure we leave them." I say. "We don't know how to get rid of them, and until we do, it's fruitless to worry about it. Instead, I'm going to see if I can find the dungeon for this floor."

Klein shrugs. "Sounds like fun. I'm in."

Asuna rolls her eyes. "We're all in, since it's technically Kirito's guild."

Koopareal starts to object, but Asuna shuts him up with a glare.

"We should set out before noon. Silica, which landing area do you have your dragon in?"

She immediately points vaguely west. "She's that way."

Lizbeth tilts her head a fraction. "How do you know?"

Silica smiles. "All dragon takers can tell where their dragons are at all times. It helps when different clans meet and there a lots of dragons everywhere."

I let their talk fade and just close my eyes. I take a quick mental inventory of my items and try to decide what I need to buy before I leave.

After about another hour of talking, we all go our separate ways and agree to meet up at the landing area on the west end of the city. I buy camping gear, lots of rope, and some dry rations that should at least fill our stomachs even if it isn't particularly tasty. Without realizing it at first, I was already counting Silica as part of our little group. I'd have to ask her if she wanted to come with us or not.

Somehow, I knew the answer would be yes.

When we met at eleven forty (Klein was late, and he had some excuse I outright ignored) I asked Silica that very question and the response I got was "Duh!"

I distributed out my purchased gear, and Lizbeth and Klein looked surprised. "We're camping out there?"

"I'm told that it's hard going without a dragon, and even with one it's hard. It's not going to be a short expedition, in any case."

Silica starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I can help with that!" She turns around and whistles.

Six dragons, all colored the grey of the rock, launch themselves off the side of the nearest mountain and dive at us. Most of use instinctively draw our weapons, but Kamipeel actually hides behind Asuna, which earns him a look of disgust.

Klein looks the least rattled of all of us, excepting Silica, and he glances over at the supposed bodyguard. "I thought your job was to protect her." He mutters.

The six dragons land in a circle around us. Silica runs up to one and wraps her arms around its neck. "Benny!"

"Benny?" Klein asks as he slowly sheathes his sword as the other dragons seem to be waiting and watching Silica.

"My dragon! Benny, this is Asuna, Lizbeth, Klein and Kuradeel."

Oh, so that's his name... Wait, what was it? Why can't I remember it? She just said it!

"You already know Kirito. He's the guy that fell off the mountain."

The rest of my party looks at me with horrified looks. "What? I didn't want to fall off the mountain!"

Koonaseal shakes his head. "If you were dead right now..." somehow, I didn't get the impression he would be too broken up about it.

Silica points to the other five dragons. "These are dragons that didn't get imprinted, so you can ride them. We always keep a few extra because occasionally a dragon with get sick or die. They don't get names though."

Asuna slowly approaches one of the dragons. "Can we give them names?"

Silica shrugs. "I guess, but it's not likely to stick."

"I'm going to call her Norberta."

Klein smirks. He looks around a walks up to a dragon. "I'm going to call mine Honoo."

Lizbeth glances at the nearest dragon, which blinks at her. "Um..."

A large face fills my view. I look at the dragon that had decided to lumber up to me and sniff me. "I'm going to call you-"

Smaug.

"...Huh?"

I look around. I don't see anyone else looking at me.

My name is Smaug.

I look back at the dragon. "I'm going to call him Smaug."

I hear faint laughter and then silence.

I'm going to attribute that to the crazy that has surrounded me and I'm not going to delve into it deeper.

Silica claps her hands. "Now, here's how you fly. To tell the dragon to go up..."

* * *

Almost eight hours later, we land in a cave that Silica assures us has been abandoned for many years. Our dragons were exhausted, so we decided to set out tomorrow. We ate my tasteless rations and set up the tents, and we all went to sleep.

At least, we all tried. I think everyone else succeeded, judging by the sounds of steady breathing coming from the other tents.

I get up, my pattern of poor sleep apparently destined to continue. I walk to the cave entrance.

It's a nice view. The mountains and the stars almost make this floor look like a giant cave in and of itself. I can see why one would choose to live here, especially if you had a dragon to help you get around.

"Can't sleep?"

I crane my neck around to see Asuna standing behind me, bathed in moonlight.

"I haven't slept well since I updated, really. Too many weird things, and my brain keeps going back to that update."

I didn't mention how literally I meant that statement.

She sighs and plops down beside me. "I'm sure you can find a way to sleep. How about you try a book?"

"A book."

"Yeah! I always have a few on me, in case I have trouble sleeping."

I quirk an eyebrow. "Then how come you aren't reading, and instead talking to me?"

She turns away so I can't see her face. "Because... Well, I need more books. I've read these all a few times already."

"Ah." I stretch my arms out to the sides, careful not to hit anything or anyone.

"Do you want to borrow one of my books?" She turns to me.

"Sure, if you don't mind. I might as well give it a try."

She opens her inventory excitedly and pulls out a book. She holds it out like she was handing me a box filled with gold. "Take good care of it, okay?"

"Yeah. I will."

She stands up. "I'm going to go back to bed. You should probably get some sleep if you can."

I nod and stand up as well. We each head for our individual tents and I enter mine before she reaches hers. I lie down on my mat and stare at the roof. Well, might as well read that book.

I open my inventory and open the books tab. There's... why is there two books? Asuna had just handed me... oh, right, Griever's book. Let's see, The Dance of the Lilies was probably the one Asuna had given me, so at left the other to be Griever's book.

It's called the player's handbook. I pull it out and start to read.

And that is the day I learned my life was a lie.


	7. Chapter 7: The Awful Truth

Hey, look who's updating in a timely manner! I hope you all enjoy. I liked writing this chapter, and don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this.

I have a plan, I swear.

Enjoy!

* * *

Life can really suck sometimes.

Sometimes, you just wake up the day after a test and realize that you got every single answer wrong. Sometimes you break your favorite weapon because you forgot to send it to a smith. Sometimes, people hurt your feelings.

None of these compare even remotely to what I am now feeling.

I sit on the same rocks, looking out at the same sky as last night, only now the sky is reddish and the stars are hard to see. Open in my lap is the reason for my distress.

The player's handbook. It's such an unassuming name, really. It definitely doesn't sound like something that would ruin your day. Night. Whatever. It's not like I would've slept anyway.

I look at the page that I had left open. Page 306. It's titled Logging out. According to this, going to sleep should log me out. According to this, everyone could log out. According to this, Logging out should be a daily occurrence.

According to this, we were all living inside a machine.

I didn't believe it at first. Well, really, I'm still not too sure I believe it. It kind of makes too much sense though. At first, I thought that Silica's dad had been right, and that Griever had been a nutcase. But...

I had been waking up somewhere, somewhere blue and heavy. Somewhere where it was hard to move. Somewhere that was perfectly described in the manual.

I kid you not. Page 249. It has a picture of a tube of blue gel with a person in it. It has some words next to it describing that people could theoretically live in one their entire lives if they chose too. A diagram of the back of the machine showed those cables and things that those people outside had told me not to touch, and apparently, those things kept me alive inside the airless, nutrient-less environment. On the bottom of the page was a number with a with an odd symbol next to it. ¥129999.99. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to guess it's a price for the tube. If that was in col, I could've told you how much it would cost in a heartbeat. Not that I had noticed, but there was supposedly a helmet attached to my head. For what must have been the hundredth time, I scratch my skin, as if something was pressing on it. Which there wasn't. At least, the wasn't anything here.

It's going to take a while for me to get used to the fact that I have two bodies, and one of them I don't even know what it looks like.

I open my menu again. I thumb through the sub menus until I get to the right place. The logout button had disappeared. I press the blank space, and predictably get no response. I close the menu and put my head in my hands. Welcome to the crackpot club, Kirirto.

I had, in my hours of thinking, realized something. Exactly zero people would believe this. Since I had no more evidence, and this book was the only source, it would be just like Griever. I would be branded a liar as well as a killer. That's kind of counter to my goals.

My goals have changed significantly, though. Now, I no longer want to get to the top floor to see what's there. I want to get to the top floor for an entirely different reason.

I want to get out.

See, Griever had added things in. Instead of just the regular, uniform, eerily perfect text, there was also messy handwritten scribbles on the edges of some of the pages. Some things, like this page (306) had lots of notes scribbled about how the system had be modified. It boiled down to the fact that nobody was allowed to log out.

The book had taught me a lot of other things as well. NPCs (not Enpesees) were not people, but things that the system used to give people something to interact with. They were no more human than a wall, they just had more personality. I learned a lot of new words too. Words like system, which was apparently a massive box that made us all see, hear, feel things that aren't actually there. Heck, even the food was simulated.

Most jarring though was the name that signed on the end. I had seen it before. Akihiko Kayaba.

As far as I could tell, this "simulation" had been running for a long time. I'm pretty sure this Akihiko should be dead, even if he was in one of the tubes. So that begs the question: Was I insane, or was everyone else?

A though strikes me as the sun pokes its head over the edge of the 13th floor. Griever had known the name Akihiko, at least enough to write something in the margins about him, all nasty stuff. That means that he had known about Akihiko through some different means from my own.

I flip back to the notes on Akihiko. The perfect text seemed to portray him as all powerful, able to do anything. He was called administrator, which means god. I inferred that last part, it wasn't written. The sloppy handwritten part was full of hate though. It had things about him being a murderer, being a liar, and being an all around di-

"Kirito?"

I slap the book shut and have it stored away before I even fully stand up. By the time I had reached my entire five foot eight height, my hand was on the hilt of my sword.

Lizbeth stands there with both her hands in front of her, mouth slightly open.

I slowly release my sword and exhale. "Don't do that."

"Do what? Say your name?" She says sarcastically. Her face softens a tiny bit. "What were you reading?"

I open my menu and hand over the book that Asuna had given me.

"Oh. I wasn't aware guys liked this kind of book." She smiles nastily. She opens the book to a random page. "She fell into his arms, in a full swoon. Gracefully, tenderly, he lowered his lips to hers-"

I grab the book away from her. "It's not mine."

"Of course it isn't." She rolls her eyes. "It's really none of my business anyway. I came to ask you what we're doing today."

I point to the sunrise. "The dungeon tube leading up is over there. The entrance should be near there."

She raises an eyebrow. "Dungeon tube?"

I realize my mistake too late. "It's a name... that I heard once. It sounds accurate."

I don't think I need to mention where I found that name.

She seems not to care enough to take much notice. "Whatever. So, I should be waking everyone else up?"

I nod. "Leave Silica to sleep though. She's too young to be doing this, if you ask me."

In the book, which I'm going to continue referencing until even I'm sick of it, there was something in really tiny text in the front that had a lot of confusing things. One of the things was that there wasn't supposed to be was players under the age of thirteen. I didn't understand why not. It obviously worked well enough that we could have ten year old dragon riders.

I listened detachedly as Lizbeth woke up everyone in the cave. Klein looks perfectly fine, like he did this all the time. Asuna, on the other hand, looked like she had just tussled with a scorpion.

I watch them slowly pack up from my spot. When Klein, Kiradool and Asuna finally walk out of the cave with their gear in tow, Lizbeth says the magic words.

"Breakfast!"

A blur shoots out of the cave that resolves into the relatively small form of Silica. She latches around Lizbeth's leg faster than the eye could follow.

"Looks like she doesn't need more sleep, Kirito." Lizbeth comments.

I shake my head.

Asuna walks up to me. Despite her being a year older, I was already taller than her. She squints at my face. "Kirito, are you alright?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Did my book help?"

"Wait, so that book wasn't actually yours?"

"Uh, why would Kirito have a book like that?"

Lizbeth steps up to Asuna. "I don't know. Why would you think that he would like something like that?"

"It's the only one I have that he might possibly like! All my others are yaoi!"

Silica tugs on Klein's sleeve. "What's yowee?"

Asuna clamps her hands over her mouth. Klein's face goes beet red. "Uhm... It's... It's this thing... where people do things... and there are more guys than girls in it."

Silica makes a face. "That doesn't sound interesting at all!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Asuna heave a sigh of relief. Personally, I'm glad that didn't go poorly-

"But I still want to try it."

Asuna sinks to the ground. Lizbeth jumps in front of her. "Look, they're full of big words, and the subject matter isn't that interesting, really."

Silica looks confused. "But dad always says you don't know until you try."

"He wasn't talking about this, I'm almost one hundred percent positive." Liz says. She crosses her arms as if to add, "and that's final!"

"O-kay. But I'm going to ask dad when I get home."

Klein sighs and shudders. "Okay, so, I heard the word breakfast."

Lizbeth starts. "Oh yeah! Ok, I'll get started."

I sit back down facing the mountains. While the noises of breakfast cooking start, I look around over my shoulder at my "party." Kirigeel wouldn't believe me on principle, Asuna would agree outwardly, but not inwardly, Liz would just snort at me, Klein would laugh, and Silica... Well, Silica might be receptive, but best not to push my luck.

Klein plops down beside me with a plate of scrambled eggs. "So what's with you today? Reading romance novels and traumatizing little girls?"

"I wasn't... I wasn't actually reading that book." I mumble. "I didn't know what it was, and now I'm certainly not going to read it."

"Aw, come on. Just a few chapters can't hurt."

I pull the book out of my inventory. "Then you read a few chapters first. If you like it, I'll try it."

Klein snatches the book away from me. "Challenge accepted."

"Huh? Hey, wait a sec-"

He opens the book and starts reading, covering the book with his arms so I couldn't reach it.

I stand there in shock for a good minute. It takes Asuna tugging on my arm to rouse me.

"Kirito? Do you want something to eat?"

"No thanks. I'm going to go see to the dragons."

I walk off and down the narrow path that leads to the cave we let our dragons roost in.

In the player's handbook, it said that dragons were companions. If you bond with one (in one of several ways) it will follow you around. According to the book and several scribbled notes, certain companions were more useful on certain floors. The example cited was floor thirteen, where dragons became much larger and afforded easier transportation across the landscape.

Back-tracing that logic, going to any other floor would result in these dragons getting smaller, but I don't know how much.

As I enter, three of the six dragons look my way. One of them is Smaug. I can tell because he grumbles slightly and watches as I get closer, while the others quickly lose interest.

"Hello there Smaug."

The dragon grumbles.

"Want to go flying?"

In the book, there was three ways to tame a companion and get their loyalty. The first is to be there when the creature is born, and raise it like Silica did. That's the ideal partnership, but it takes a long time. The second method involves food. It's when you lure the creature to you and lather affection on it until it bonds with you. This method was weaker than the first method, but still stronger than the third way. The third way isn't like the other two, where a bond forms naturally. Instead, the player subdues the creature by force, chains it up and forces it to work for him.

Fortunately, since I had neither the bonds to hold a dragon, ample supplies of red meat or an egg to hatch (and the time to hatch it), there is another method in the margins, written specifically for dragons.

"Take them flying."

Smaug dives to build up speed and opens his wings at the last moment, pulling out of the screaming dive just before he would've crashed into the rocks. I clutch tightly to the reigns and let Smaug pick his own destination. He's the one who's supposed to know how to fly, I'm just kind of sitting here.

Smaug does all sorts of acrobatics, most of which I didn't see because I had my eyes clamped shut. I only recently learned that I'm afraid of heights, okay? It's not like I had time to get over it.

I had to stop myself from puking as well. Not that there is much in my stomach, but yeah. No puking on the dragon. I'm not sure if puking was covered in the book, but I'm pretty sure if it was, it would be under things not to do.

Smaug finally rights himself and starts gliding. Grateful for the respite, I look around me. Aside from a sense of being pulled off the dragon by my boots, it is actually quite nice.

A small sound calls out in the distance. Smaug turns his head in the direction of the noise. I follow his gaze to find-

Oh, crap. Ten dragons start swarming around me, screeching and diving faster than I can track them. Why do dragons screech? They aren't hawks. Or eagles. They're big lizards. I guess it doesn't really matter, since that screech that annoyed me seemed to have a worse effect on Smaug. Smaug starts careening towards a ledge that looks just right for a landing pad as the others start to close in, eager to take advantage of Smaug's weakness.

I twist around in my seat, drawing Black Ice from my holster, and the one-hit-left Stinger. Ten dragons. I might be able to take two on alone, if I can prick one with this poison, but ten is pushing it. Especially since all of their health bars indicate that they are all at least level 19.

Opening my menus, I flick over to the companion stats. This dragon is only level 10, which means... It's weak as all hell. So I can't count on his abilities-

One of the dragons swoops in. I reflexively swing Black Ice upwards and carving into its stomach. It bellows and goes into a steep dive, following us to the ground. Then it bursts into a million shiny particles that rain down from above, shining lights everywhere. In the corner of my eye, a window appears noting new loot.

Wait, these are dragons! Surely they can't be that weak!

Another one swoops in. I swing Stinger around and jab at it's foreleg. Stinger predictably breaks, but the dragon doesn't seem to be affected. I slash Black Ice down and-

It glances off of the scales of the creature. Wait, so I got lucky and hit the first one's weak point first try? That's... Well, there is now one less threat to my life, so I'm going to be grateful for that.

"Smaug! Climb!"

I deftly draw a second sword from my inventory and place it in my left hand. Smaug does as told and swoops upwards.

Two dragons fly up on either side, restricting Smaug's wing-space. Smaug starts to fly slower and start dropping.

"Smaug?"

Smaug flaps wildly, but can't find purchase on the air in this cramped space.

"Okay then." I gulp. Please let the book be right. Please, please let the book be right.

I unstrap myself from Smaug's saddle. "I'm going to jump, Smaug. You are going to get away and come back before I get killed."

I will swear on my sword that Smaug nodded at me.

"On my mark."

"Go!"

I leap onto one of the other dragons right as Smaug flares his wings sideways and uses the air rushing past to come to a quick stop. The dragon I had just landed on growls.

"Oh, so you don't like that? Well, how about this?"

I stab my two swords downwards, and my backup sword lodges between two scales. The dragon screams and starts flying about in circles, trying to get me off. I hang on for dear life to the sword, my feet quickly losing traction on the smooth scales. The second dragon, the one the was flanking Smaug and I, flies through the center of the spiral the one I'm riding. It floats up to my level and pivots to track me.

"What?" I jeer at it.

It inhales a great big breath and breaths fire out at me. The ball of fire comes closer and closer...

I look down. Yeah, not a bright move. My arms instinctively lock around the hilt of my sword. I glance back at the fire. The dragon aiming it is starting to move its head so the fire comes closer. Damn, the book was right. Dragons did have intelligence.

"Smaug? I hope you hear this!"

I close my eyes, whistle, and let go. Wind rushes past my ears as I start falling.

Please please please pleasepleasepleaseplease-

Whumph. I open my eyes as I land on a dragon's back. I scramble for a handhold and snag a strap of leather.

"Okay. Hey Smaug, let's do this. You fly, I kill."

Smaug huffs at me then goes into a spin that makes me want to throw up again. This time, I keep my easy open and HOLY SHIT that was close. Since when did dragons throw boulders?!

Smaug starts a steep ascent that looks like it will carry us back to the dragons I had just leapt off of. They seem to be having an argument, one involving flame and fire and ohgodthatsalotofteeth.

I pull out yet another backup sword- my last- and stand up, bracing my feet on the straps of the saddle.

"Let's go!"

Smaug roars in challenge, and the two squabbling dragons redirect on us. I kick off of Smaug and launch towards the first one's eyes. It instinctively closes its eyelid, which is pretty armored for something that is supposed to move. Thankfully, this armor isn't transparent. I pull a bag of flour out of my pouch. Typically, it's used in either baking or in detecting invisible people, but today-

The dragon opens its eye only to get an eyeful of white powder. It roars in rage and thrashes about. I brace my swords and jab into the biggest chink I can find and slice. A think red line denoting the path I just carved shows I did some serious damage... And his health bar hits zero. I barely have time to jump before he turns into glass behind me.

Smaug flies past me and tackles another dragon as it swoops in. I trace my trajectory with my eyes... Hell-o.

My swords enter the dragon's eyes, and I see the health bars drain even as I struggle to break free. It's eyelid is trapping my sword-

Glass. Jeez, you'd think I would learn not to leap and kill without figuring out my plan of action.

I land on a rocky outcrop and pant for a second before looking up. Smaug is battling two other dragons at once, and winning.

I check his stats while I have a moment of respite. Let's see... Level 17? Wasn't he level 10 right before this battle? I look back up at the fight. I took out three, Smaug just took two out... I only see four left. He must have gotten one while I was falling.

Skish.

Make that 4. So, three left.

I whistle as loud as I can and take a flying leap off of the edge of the cliff, which was a really stupid idea. I know I can't stand heights, so why do I keep looking down?

Smaug catches me and flies upwards. The three dragons that are left are all circling us. I watch one in particular that seems more cunning than the other two.

"Alright, I hope you have a plan." I mutter. "Cause I sure as hell don't."

With that, Smaug dives. I watch as the two potentially stupider dragons follow, but the cunning one stays behind. The two that follow are flying in perfect synchronization behind us, their necks moving in strange manners. I don't get much of a chance to contemplate what the were doing.

It only takes one fireball to take down a dragon. I wish it had known that, it would've been useful.

Smaug and I crash land on the side of an almost vertical mountain and start to slide off the edge. His wings, leathery like a bat's, are now torn. Smaug gets to his feet and backs into the cave. I quickly follow suit as the other two dragons land on the rock shelf with a crash.

"Okay. Time to see how well dragons fight in a hole."

The two dragons saunter up to us, hissing and spitting small bits of flame.

I ready Black Ice and wait for the right moment.

Wait for it...

I spring upwards right as a fireball is launched at me, dodging it entirely. The fireball splashes against the ground, and I am so glad I jumped instead of ducking. Smaug launches himself at the other dragon, so I figure that means I have to get this one. After a good few seconds in the air, I land on my feet.

"Hey ugly. I thought you were supposed to be a dragon. All I see is a newt."

I'm guessing even the wild dragons know some languages, or else this one took an exception to my tone. I barely dodge the torrent of fire and run up to the beast.

I had planned to stab its stomach while it was blinding itself with its own fire, but it suddenly cuts off the fire and swings its massive jaws at me.

Hey, where'd my sword go... Oh, it's over there with my left arm up to the elbow. The dragon roars, it's pose reminding me more of a wolf than anything else. I dash up to tit and thrust upwards with Black Ice, which starts making cracking noises. The dragon bellows for one last final time for shattering in a rain of glass.

Through the rain of glass comes Smaug and his opponent. Three thousand pounds of muscle each roll across the cramped cave floor, and Smaug is scratching and clawing at the face of this other dragon which is doing something similar. I walk if the the dragon and toss Black Ice upwards. Smaug catches it in his teeth and plunges it downwards.

Silence pervades through the cave.

"Good job, Smaug."

He drops the sword and I pick it back up off the ground.

Only one more dragon... I look down at my severed left arm, my right arm, which has Black Ice at 3% durability, and at Smaug, who's wings are starting to look unusable.

"Looks like we aren't going to survive this much longer." I mutter.

Smaug huffs beneath me. It's almost like he's telling me to screw off.

I laugh. "Yeah, I get it. You aren't going down without a fight."

He purrs. I didn't know dragons could purr, but despite my predicament, it made me want to laugh even more. It's just so funny! Dragons purring like little kittens!

Smaug lifts his wings and orients himself to the exit. I look out the hole in e rock to see the other dragon circling this mountain lazily, as if it had all the time in the world. I suppose that it would, being nothing more than so much light.

I shake my head. Those thoughts were not productive in a fight. Real or simulated, I would die here if I made the wrong move.

"Alright, Smaug. You ready?"

Huff.

"Alright. Go!"

We take off like we got fired out of a slingshot and into the open air. The other dragon is...

Where is he?

I look around, but I don't see anything. No dragon, no fire, no nothing.

So, where was he?

That was when I noticed the shadow and looked up. And screamed.

* * *

I wake up with a concussion, chest pain, and a twisted ankle. I also wake up with someone's head resting on my arm, putting It to sleep. I crane my neck to see Asuna's hair splayed out and around, bobbing up and down slightly as she breathes in and out.

"Asuna?"

No response.

"Hey, Asuna. I would like my arm back, please."

Still no response. She must be asleep for real. I shake my arm as mush as I can without moving my torso. She stirs a bit and slowly yawns and looks up.

"Hi, Kirito. Glad you're awake-" Her eyes cross and she starts blushing. "I-I-I wasn't sleeping! I was just tired from waiting and it took a long time to find you."

I smirk. "So you didn't feel it when I-"

"WHEN YOU WHAT?"

Lizbeth storms into the room. She's panting and looks like she just ran here- oh, yeah, she probably did. Don't know how she knew though.

"It was a joke, Lizbeth. Calm down." I look at my bandaged left hand (which had thankfully grown back) and I still couldn't feel my right. "So, how come I'm not dead?"

"Well, it took all five of us, but we took down the dragon you were fighting. We arrived right when you flew out of that cave, and we called out, but you didn't hear us. Lizbeth caught you on your way down." Asuna says. Then she pulls out a pillow and slams it into my face. Despite its relative fluffiness and the fact it couldn't weigh more than a few pounds, it hurts.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Silica said that even the best dragon riders aren't supposed to take on a dragon without backup. We were just sitting there eating brreakfast, when out of nowhere a pillar of fire comes from the east. We all scrambled after you and just barely managed to save you."

She throws up her hands. "What made you think you could take out a dragon?"

"I did."

Silence. Sweet silence. At least for a little bit.

"Huh?"

"There was ten of them. I got all but the last one."

Asuna covers her mouth in shock. Lizbeth just lets hers gape.

"You took out nine dragons."

"Yes."

"Without help."

"Uh huh. Well, Smaug helped. Hey, is Smaug alright?"

Asuna nods slowly. "He's recovering. Healing potions and crystals don't work on dragons."

"Right." I slump back. "They need red meat to heal, right?"

"How did you know that?" Says a small voice.

Silica pops her head up over Lizbeth's shoulder. "You better now?"

"I am better, just not 100%. Thanks."

Asuna looks at Lizbeth. Lizbeth looks back. They both have a determined look in their eyes.

Why am I getting a bad feeling?

* * *

"You can't do this."

I blink at the assembled group. "Obviously, I can."

Asuna shakes her head. "Kirito, you know that you almost died? We can't let that happen to you!"

"It won't. I figured out what I did wrong, and next time-"

"Next time, we're too far away to get you!" She slams her hands onto the makeshift table. "Next time, you land in a rocky crag where nobody can find you! Next time, you get eaten! Next time, you die for real!"

Silence descends on the room. Klein is the next to speak. "Kirito, we got lucky. You got lucky twice, being caught while falling twice on this floor alone. If you go off alone, we can't help you when you get hurt."

I stare at all of them. "How long did it take you to kill that dragon?"

Lizbeth's eyebrow quirks. "Are you trying to change the subject?"

"No. Answer the damn question."

"About ten minutes."

"So longer than it took me to take out nine of them." I nod. "Great skill you all have. Combined, I can only outmatch you nine to one."

Lizbeth starts getting angry and Asuna starts looking confused. Klein straightens up from his position leaning against the wall. "Kirito, think. Yes, you can beat nine dragons. But you took on ten. If we were there, we wouldn't have lost a day to let you recuperate."

I look him in the eyes. "I'm fine. Let's go then."

He shakes his head. "It's night. We can't see."

"So? Our dragons can see."

"What if we get ambushed?" Lizbeth says, obviously trying to remain calm. "How do we tell the dragons where to go?"

"We don't need to, they know where to go. We just need to swing our tiny little sticks around and hope we kill something."

Silica rests her chin on the table. "But I don't like the dark."

"Then go home."

Silence.

Silica suddenly bolts upright and throws something at me. I catch it before it can impact me though.

"You big idiot!" She screams, before turning and running away. Asuna shoots me a look and disappears after her. K-whatever slouches after them, sighing the whole way.

Klein and Lizbeth glare at me. "Look, Kirito, I don't know what's gotten into you, but you need to back down. We're just trying to help."

"Right. You would. You think this is some grand quest that can be slowly taken all the way to the top, huh? That not true. Look around, everything you see? It's all fake. It's all just something in our heads. None of us are really here, we're all in some tubes somewhere."

Liz and Klein share a look.

"I know you won't believe me. Here." I sift through my inventory and slam the players handbook down. "I know, ask Asuna! She knows, I showed her. Find out the truth for yourselves, or just rot down here. I don't care anymore."

I walk around the table only to be stopped by Klein's hand on my shoulder. "Kirito-"

"I'd suggest letting go now, before I decide to test how many strokes it takes a level 24 character to take you out. I'm going with one or two."

Klein slowly lets go. I walk off down the corridor to the room with all my stuff.

Time to get packing.

* * *

"He's acting irrationally." Liz fumes as she sits down in the hallway. I nod politely and keep listening. Asuna had just been informed of Kirito's little fit and was thinking.

Nine freaking dragons. It took us all we had to kill one, and he killed nine.

"Klein."

I look up to see Asuna staring at me.

"Yeah?"

"I want you to watch over Kirito and make sure he doesn't do anything brash."

I nod. "You can count on me."

Lizbeth heaves a sigh. "I don't even understand what he was talking about."

Asuna cocks her head. "What do you mean?"

"He was saying something about this book." Liz tosses it to Asuna.

Asuna opens it up. "What is this?"

"No idea." I reply. "But it's full of weird theories. Stuff that isn't real. It says thinks like that we're all just people trapped in a virtual world. It seems like fear mongering to me." I shrug. "Just throw it out."

"Wait." Asuna points at something. "Kirito... He has this!"

"Huh?" I look over her shoulder. "What's log out?"

Lizbeth shoots me a look. I point to the book. "It's what it says, honest!"

She comes over and starts reading as well. "The log out button..."

After a good five minutes of reading and retreading the relatively short passages, we look at each other.

"So you say Kirito has this log out button."

"Yes! He doesn't- didn't- know what it did! When he was training me, he asked what it was. He must have found that sometime after then."

I shake my head. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would you need to leave this world? This is making it sound like we are supposed to leave Aincrad every few hours!"

I blink. "How is anyone supposed to get to the top level if they aren't always here?"

Lizbeth shakes her head. "I bet he made this. Or he told some crackpot who then made this. With the state he's in, I wouldn't be surprised."

A sharp whistle sounds. In this cave system, it echoes and reverberates for a lot longer than it seemed it should.

As the shrill sound fades, it gets replaced by a new sound.

Thuds. Heavy, loud, thunderous thuds. They remind me of a giant lizard that was rumored to exist on floor twenty three. What was it called?

I poke my head out the doorway, and immediately pull back as a blue scaled blur shoots past me. I look out again once it's past and see... Is that Kirito's dragon?

"Does Kirito have a dragon? I mean, does he have a dragon bonded to him?" I ask.

The two girls present shake their heads.

"Shiiiiit."

Silica pokes her head in the doorway. "Anyone else hear a whistle?"

"Yes. Why?"

"That's the signal for come. We're all taught it very young. But if it wasn't me, then who was it?"

Lizbeth raises her hand. "I'll bet thirty col Kirito managed to bond to a dragon in the half an hour he was gone."

My mouth flattens into a line. "No bet."

The loud, heavy footsteps start coming back.

Silica gasps. "Kirito?"

I grab her arm and yank her into this room before she gets trampled. The blue blur passes by, and I swear time slowed down enough that I could see the smile on Kirito's face as he zipped past.

Lizbeth dashes out after him, closely followed by the rest of us. Kuradeel is still somewhere in the building, but frankly, who cares?

A message pops up into my window. It's from somebody I don't know. One Kazuto Kirigaya.

"Klein."

Wait, that's Kirito... When did he change his name?

"Don't follow me. Not until you can hold your own. Until then, goodbye."

What? He goes through the trouble of changing his name-

My message box pings again. I open it while still running.

"One person has deleted you as a friend."

Huh?!

I look at the three girls around me. Only Lizbeth is making motions as if she was reading a message, but of course I can't see it. She has a single, confused tear running down her face. The roof goes away abruptly and Silica screams for us to stop. Everyone complies and I only mostly went over the edge. After being pulled up from the cliff edge, I look out to see the stars from between the floors. It might be my imagination, but I could've sworn I saw a dragon flying away into the dark.

* * *

Five days later, We stand on a teleport pad. Not just any teleport pad. No, we are standing on floor eighteen. It unlocked literally five minutes ago.

We had been standing guard in a barracks located just outside the floor seventeen teleporter when the message came through. While during the day, announcements came as they had when thirteen was unlocked, but at night, it was just a message that got displayed.

"Fuurinkazan, Move it!"

My guild hops to my orders and spread out, dashing through the streets and two leaping onto rooftops to look for him. These rooftops were already burning, unfortunately, so even they would find a winding path.

He had cleared one floor a day so far.

Nobody could figure out how he was doing it, but I had my suspicions. He wasn't normal, not by a long shot.

"Kirito, stop messing around. You'll get yourself-"

"Killed?"

Suddenly, a blade at my throat. My left eye shifts as fat as it can go. "Kirito."

"Klein."

"So, how's things?"

"Good, good. Haven't met anyone new lately."

"That's... nice. I guess."

The blade shifts away. "I think you should check on Franz and Henry. I didn't want tip his to be a safe zone, so I left you guys a surprise. Might want to get to those two before coming after me."

I whirl around, but my blade cuts nothing but air. I pull open my squad window-

Two paralyzations. Franz and Henry. I whirl and run to where they were both to be stationed. On my way, I hear an ominous hissing...


	8. Chapter 8: The Lands of Ice and Fire

Floor 28: A city wreathed in volcanoes. Thus, everything is fire resistant. I look around before I activate this floor. To escape, I would need to find a new distraction. A tiny Smaug sits on my shoulder, snorting bellows of smoke out of his nostrils. I scratch his head absentmindedly. Doesn't look like the tactics I used the last few times is going to work.

Contrary to what the news messages kept saying, I wasn't out to kill everyone, nor am I the herald of the end of the world. There was just a small problem of the fact I am supposed to be in jail, and... Well, it doesn't look like anyone can stop me. My goal in burning down the cities as I woke them up was just to allow me time to escape. So far, it had helped immensely.

In the past month, I had managed to clear eight floors. Eight floors. When I started, I had been on one floor a day until I hit 20. Floor twenty had been a sobering day.

When I hit floor twenty, I had let Smaug fly around and burn the nearest buildings just like I always had. Unfortunately, I hadn't paid anywhere close to enough attention to this floor, just slapping the button and going for it.

It turned out this floor was filled with swamps. Swamps that produced tons of methane gasses that ignited and started spreading out of my control. Explosions rocked the entirety of Aincrad and even I decided that what I had caused was a bad idea. I bolted out of the plaza right as the capturing force had teleported in. I had glanced over my shoulder to see a flame reach out to lick a methane bubble... And when the smoke cleared, not a single shard of glass had remained.

Those eight warrior's names were gone from the top 100 list the next day. Ironically, the dungeon on the twentieth floor became a safe haven from which I could afford to hide and watch the news messages pour in.

I found out quite a lot more than I wanted too. Because of my companion's fire being everywhere, the entire floor had been made illegal to go to. The fires kept moving around from place to place, and occasionally exploding as a bubble of methane rises to the surface. Those eight that had died had a memorial made of them on the first floor, replacing the old statue of someone long dead- nobody knew who except those with a book. Akihiko Kayaba. Those eight players stood for the righteous fight, one that benefited everyone, not just one self seeking, power hungry swordsman who was actually doing their work for them.

No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?

In that week, I had been branded everything from a demon to a typical criminal, but there was no positive opinion. I noticed that they people that were close to me, those that knew me, weren't appearing in any articles. I guess they didn't want biased opinions for their news casting.

The last thing I learned from my time in the cave is that people were occupying the floors I had cleared. The popular opinion somehow seemed to be that the Clearers would've opened up these floors anyway, and I'm just an idiot who happened to find a super rare item. I had found no such rare item, but I couldn't exactly prove that. Not while still guaranteeing both their and my safety.

During the night five days after the incident (and one day after I had conquered the next floor, so I wouldn't have to go through twenty) I went and visited the statue and the leader board.

The statue stands thirty feet tall, and as far as I had gleaned, Lizbeth was the person who had created it. Despite the danger for me to be inside this city, I sat down and stared up at it. On the base was an inscription.

"In memory of the eight members of Fuurinkazan who gave their lives to try to apprehend the Black Knight."

It takes a second to register what this meant. Fuurinkazan? That's Klein's guild!

I stand up quickly. The leader board is on this floor, I need to go check it-

A hand claps down on my shoulder. I freeze.

"Yeah, it's a shame, isn't it."

I glance towards the woman holding me back, being careful not to allow her to see my face.

Yeah. I thought I recognized the voice. It's Asuna. I have no idea why she's up at this hour.

"One of my friends is dead in that fire, and possibly another one." She lets go and looks up at the statue.

My throat constricts, letting out a little squeak. She looks back at me. "Oh? Did you say something?"

I decide to lower my voice as far as possible. "Uh, yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. I was just here to see it-"

Asuna nods. "You don't need to explain yourself. Its just a sad thing."

We stand side by side for another few minutes and stare up at the eight figures in fighting poses that I had the unique privilege of knowing was completely not how they had died. I look away first. None of the faces resembled Klein's, but that wasn't really a guarantee of his survival.

"Thanks for keeping me company." Asuna says. "It's always so lonely out here at night."

"Then come during the day." After it was out of my mouth, I realized what tone I had used. "Er, sorry, that came out wrong."

"It's alright. Night's the only time I can slip my guard and go practice. Kirito- that's the name of the Black Knight- he's got to be really high level now. I need to find a way to catch up to him so I can stop him."

I nod. "Sounds like you have some personal interest in him."

She barks out a laugh. "You could say that. I was in his party when he went rogue. Now he's a murderer. I want to get revenge for my friend."

I nod more slowly. "Are you sure? I mean, revenge isn't really a noble goal."

She looks at me, and I barely duck my face in time. "He needs to be stopped, and... Well, there's nobody better to do it than me. I've studied his attacks, and I was training with him for a few weeks before he left. Also, he would never expect me to go after him. He won't be preparing for me."

She grabs my hand, causing a spike of panic. "Come on, let's go the the leader board."

She leads my all the way to my destination. I look at the giant list of 100 names, often with extra information added on the end.

You can choose what you share to the leaderboard. You can choose to show your nickname as well, but that's just asking for a fight. There are a few more numbers and stats you can display, but none of them are really that impressive unless you are a dualist an win enough matches to put yourself in the board. You can also post your level, but that was akin to spray painting your sword's stats on the ground for everyone to see. A really bad idea.

Asuna points about three quarters of the way up. "I'm position twenty three. Kirito had me doing a training regime that let me get more powerful very quickly." She turns to me. "You look capable. I'm trying to make a hunting party to go after him, and if you'd join, that would be much appreciated."

She hold out her hand.

"I can't accept. I'm not really suited to combat." I say. "But I'll think about it. It sounds like a noble cause."

She opens up a window. "Okay, I'll send you an invite into the group anyway. If you want to join me, just click accept."

I nod, and she turns and heads back to the statue.

I look back at the board. In the position one step from the top... Isn't me. It's a blank spot that has a nickname attached to to it, just like it always has. Heathcliff.

Under it, the name Kazuto Kirigaya, without any extra information.

I open my window and press a few buttons. Two new pieces of information carve themselves into the stone face of the monolith.

It now reads "Kazuto Kirigaya, Karito, level 27."

* * *

Smaug nips my nose. I blink in surprise as I remember that I'm now on level 28, and ready to hit yet another button to open yet another floor. I had singlehandedly doubled the area we were able to live in in under two months, and was about to add some pretty inhospitable land to that. Smaug gives my a questioning look.

"Sorry, just thinking to hard again." I reach out for the button. "Okay, so once I hit this, you need to guide me out. I don't know the way out, and if the past is any example... let's not waste time."

Smaug nods his tiny head and flaps his winds hard enough for him to appear as blur as he rockets upwards. The blueish grey scales glisten with the reflection of e lava that poured out from the ceiling. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but this city seemed completely untouched by the flows. I guess regularly having lava pour into your city would suck, so I'm going to go with intentional.

I smack the button and start running even before the alarm starts blaring. Thirty feet away, ten- no, twenty people step off the elevator, all dressed in armor with a lion painted on it.

That has to be the fastest they'd ever responded. I snap my head to look up at Smaug, who was already flying off in a direction for me to follow. I bolted down the road indicated by my companion.

I felt the heat increasing, hitting me like a physical wall that had to be breached every step of the way.

I turn the corner and run in the new direction, following Smaug with a quick glance every few steps. He leads me down road after road, the heat starting to sap my strength as it becomes impossible to ignore. I lean down to pant in some burning hot breathes. When I look up, Smaug is turning in a circle. I dash down the road he is flying above-

He swoops down and bits the back of my shirt, and I quickly see why. The road is a dead end. I whirl around and run back the way I came.

Too late. Two of the braver souls from the hunting party had followed me.

I draw my sword. I had no intention of using it, but it was still my only defense.

The two facing me advance. The heat creates a haze that makes it hard to recognize them, but I'm pretty sure one of them is Asuna. Unless another high level rapier user had risen up when he wasn't looking.

With a yell, Asuna charges. I don't even swing my sword, just taking a step back to dodge.

The other attacker, someone with a mask over his face, attacked with a curved sword. That one is more expertly aimed and I am forced to block it. His sword contacts mine... and keeps swinging, broken in two as my sword shatters his at the contact point. Before the sword decays into polygons, it scratches me for approximately one hundred-thousandth of my total hit points.

The man leaps two steps back, and Asuna continues her attack, attempting to skewer me with all her might. I dodge the point of the sword effortlessly. It takes me a second to realize why she is missing this badly, despite what I had 'taught' her.

Tears are coming from her eyes, partially blinding her. I could only guess at their origin, whether from anger or sadness.

I leap backwards as fast as possible, quickly arriving back at the end of the dead end. Asuna charges me again, and this time I don't dodge. Instead, I grab her sword, its blade moving through my hand to nick my stomach and my hand starting to sting as the sharp metal cut through my hand.

"Asuna, why are you doing this?"

"You're a murderer! You try to kill anyone who comes after you!"

"No, that was-"

"I'm going to make sure nobody dies by your hand ever again!"

She pulls her sword back out, barbs on the outer surface attempting to pull my hands with it. She pulls back-

I plant a boot into her solar plexus, sending her flying backwards into her friend. I whisper an apology and jump over the duo, once again following Smaug as he guides me from above.

* * *

Surprisingly, I found a rocky area completely untouched by lava deep inside the outer area of this level. I take a rest there, tired of fighting things with fire or lava in their name. Seriously. Fire bats are the worst.

Smaug had enjoyed this level do far, able to eat his fill of both meat and fire. He had curled up at my feet and went to sleep as soon as I sat down.

After eating something to calm the growling in my stomach, I decide to dump out my inventory and see what I had.

I sort everything into piles. Food goes in one, healing items in another, raw materials in a third, survival supplies in a fourth, and finally a pile for all my weapons.

Food supplies are low. Due to my ability to forage on floors with trees and plants, it was unlikely I would starve unless I couldn't get off this rock soon. Not that I would actually starve, it's just that the hunger penalties would cripple me in combat.

Healing items? I almost never allowed myself to get hit. These potions were honestly almost useless when compared to my natural regeneration that I had upgraded as leveled.

I had tones of raw materials, and I'll get to that later. Survival supplies had large durabilities so you didn't have to purchase them too often, and mine were all... in decent shape. Despite my rough handling, after two months they are still over half durability, with the exception of one pan that I had used to bash a tiny monster's head in. That pan was down to five percent.

Weapons I had tons of. 90% of my inventory easy. I sort them out into sub piles, my workspace clear from scooping everything else back up. One handed swords go into one pile, other weapons I can equip into another, and a third pile for all the ones I couldn't use.

I consider dumping the unusable weapons, but they might come in handy if I need to trade for stuff... Though I have no idea who that would be, I pick out the best ten percent statwise and put them back into my inventory, pushing the rest into the lake of lava.

Next, I look at my side gear. Throwing daggers, a two handed buster sword, several darts that fit into a blow gun, and even a bow. I had tried the bow, but I sucked at it. Smaug always had fun retrieving the arrows though, so I kept it.

Finally, my single handed sword pile. This was the largest pile by far. Something about classes corresponding with drop rates. Just go read the player guide if you need to know more. I had about three hundred swords, which was quite frankly ridiculous. Most of those are low quality drops that barely are worth anything. They're just there to give me some more cash, and since I had yet to have time to visit a shop, an pretty much automatically threw them away into the lava. That left me with less than thirty named swords, all splayed out in front of me.

I pulled out one of my favorites. Black Ice, currently at 3% durability. It had been down there since floor 23, but since I highly doubt Lizbeth would be willing to fix it for me, it's going to stay there. NPCs are supposedly able to be blacksmiths and work on weapons, but they are less effective then a real blacksmith. I also have no time to visit those blacksmiths. It's not like I was lacking for materials. I had so much raw metal that I could probably start my own smith shop. I set down Black Ice and look at my other weapons, I still had the stealth sword Thief, since it does so little damage it's not effective in combat. The sword with the crystal slot is still there, seeing as I had yet to find a single crystal to put into it. On this floor, I had found five lava blades which set things on fire and was completely useless on this particular floor. There were several other interesting effects on the blades, two of which I currently had equipped, a blade that coursed a bleed out effect and one that was able to freeze enemies in place with a single hit. It really came in handy on this floor, unlike the drops.

I scoop everything that I'm keeping back into my inventory and stand up. Smaug yawns and looks up at me.

"I'm ready to continue."

He flaps his wings and lands on my shoulder. I stroke his chin and turn around to face the direction I was going. This rock outcropping leads to a cave, and I had the sneaking suspicion that it also leads to the dungeon. It's the only cave I had seen while wandering down here, so it's my best shot so far.

I enter the threshold of the cave. Behind me, a boulder rumbles into place and seals me in. That normally only happens for floor bosses, but I'm still down on ground level... I think. I might be higher than I thought with all this lava obscuring my view this entire floor. I ready both of my swords, scanning for an enemy. The room is almost perfectly round, and in the center is a puddle of lava.

I cautiously take a step forwards and wait again, anticipating something to jump out at me.

Nothing comes at me. Seriously. Nothing decides to rip my throat out, burn me, or otherwise attempt to drain my hit points. I take a few more steps repeating the step and pause pattern before deciding to just check out the pool in the center of the room.

It turns out not to be a puddle, but a lava slime. A freaking slime. It takes me a moment to realize why this might actually be a problem worthy of boss status. Normally, slimes were easy to dispatch when you used fire to fry them to a crisp before attempting to cut them, since otherwise your sword would just pass through it.

I bring my ice sword to bear. Freezing it should d the same job of solidifying it, right?

I strike the creature with my ice blade and watch as it freezes over, then strike it with the bleed out sword.

Instead of cracking and disintegrating, the ice shatters and the lava slime jiggles a bit before bouncing up and down to reorient on me. Little dribbles of lava leak out of the cubic shape, and looking closely at it's health bar, my bleed did do some damage, but not enough to seriously increase my chances of winning. I sigh and ready my ice blade.

I offhandedly notice that the blade is almost gone, with it's durability at only two percent. Somehow, I doubted I would be able to win this one easily. Not without some way to freeze him-

Smaug leaps in front of me before I can swing again. He lands right next to the cube and opens his jaws wide.

Then Smaug takes a bite. The cube bounces in place, and it's health bar lowers a chunk.

"Okay... Smaug, eat as much of him as you can!" I watch from the sides as Smaug chops his way through half of the creature's health without having any problems himself. I guess I should be glad I have a dragon. I'll need to do something for Smaug-

Actually, no I won't. Even if I don't, by the rules of this world, he'll follow me. I stare at the tiny dragon that was still munching on the lava cube. According to the book, he wasn't real, just something for me to use to help myself. I could ignore him for a year, and he'd still consider me his best friend when I called him back. I literally didn't have to do anything for Smaug.

Smaug chokes down the last bite a lava cube, and the doors on both sides open. I stand up from my spot and walk towards the exit, a small dragon flying up and landing on my shoulder.

* * *

Five minutes later, I had arrived in the center of a town. That was normal, and had been happening to me significantly more often than most. War startled me was that this town was already bustling. There are NPCs walking around, offering good in their tireless voices. Money is exchanging hands.

More disturbingly for me, there are also troops stationed around, people I recognize. People who have been hunting me.

I pull my hood over my face, making my marker disappear and letting me walk past the garrison. I also hide Smaug by sendi him off to train, which meant I couldn't call him for twenty minutes. I sneak out between two of the lower ranking men that I could tell we're inexperienced. They had lower quality weapons, since the better ones had level restrictions. I never had a problem with that, but I'm sure this brigade was with all the sharing they do within their organization.

Once past the two I mentioned, the path was clear. A chill wind blows down the street, and I notice that every NPC has winter clothes on.

"Out of the fire and into the snow, huh." I slide into an alley and quickly thumb through my menus, switching my lighter gear out for heavy winter stuff.

So now I had a few things to do. I needed to find a blacksmith, and I needed to figure out why this level was already unlocked.

Interestingly, I came by the answer to both all at once. I met a man named Fritz, a blacksmith, who was willing to talk to me. After some careful prodding, I realized that he wasn't an NPC, but a real person.

I handed him all my worn down swords, along with a lot of spare materials and he gets to work.

Fritz turns to me after the automated portion starts. "So, you one of those Clearers?"

I nod. "Yeah. I was pretty surprised when I found this floor cleared though."

He smiles. "I was surprised when I started getting messages telling me that the lower floors had been cleared. My dad used to tell me how we used to be able to travel to the bottom floor, but once we were overrun by the ice monsters, the teleporter shut down. Whenever that Clearer unlocked the floor below us, somebody pressed the button and unlocked this floor as well."

"So, until now you haven't been able to leave this town?"

He shakes his head. "Technically, yes. But it's suicide to go outside the walls, so I've been in here my whole life. I'm thinking of moving to floor twenty six, I hear there are islands there."

I nod. "Yeah. The main city is one big island. Then there are little ones off the coast of the main one, and the further out you get the more spares they are. Eventually you reach the edge of the floor, but by that time there's nothing but water within easy reach."

He gives me an appraising look. "So you really are a Clearer."

I smirk.

"So what do you think of that Kirito guy?" He glances back at my sword, flips it over between hammer strokes, and upturns his attention back to me.

"People say he's a murderer." I stare at my sword, anxious for it to be done.

Fritz smiles a small, lopsided smile. "I didn't ask what people think. I get enough of that through community channels. I asked what you think of him."

I frown. "He's..." I stop. "I think he's trying to clear these floors as fast as possible. I wouldn't know why, but it doesn't seem like he wants to kill anybody."

Fritz raises an eyebrow. "Didn't he kill people on floor 20?"

I nod. "But that was only on floor 20. He's had the opportunity to kill a lot more people, but hasn't. It makes me wonder."

Fritz nods slowly, as if mulling something over. "It would. So you think this guy is harmless?"

I bark out a laugh. "Hell no. He's dangerous. It's just that I don't think he will kill people unless he has to."

Fritz nods again. He ills Black Ice out from under the automatic hammer and hands it to me. "Looking good. Give it a try."

I swing it back and forth experimentally. It's back to its original capacity, and 100% durability. "Thanks. It's back to full."

He pulls out another of my swords and places it under the auto hammer. "Glad to hear it. Say, what guild are you in? I don't think I caught it the first time."

"I didn't say. I'm not technically in one, I just hang around with the Fuurinkazan a lot and go on raids when they head out."

Fritz looks up from my sword. "I see." he goes silent, and the only sound for a while is the rhythmic sound of the hammer falling over and over, in perfect little increments.

I soon feel my eyelids drooping downwards, and before I know it, I'm asleep.

* * *

When I woke up I almost panicked. I had had the best sleep, uninterrupted by nightmares or a visit to the outside world, aka jelly tube. I woke up in a strange room, and after camping for a month, roof pretty much meant captivity. It's a weird feeling, to see a roof and wish it wasn't there.

I straightened up to find myself in someone's house. It doesn't look like anyone is around though. I open my inventory to find that all my swords had been returned to me, and I also received a message while I was out.

"Dear Kirito,

"Don't be alarmed, but I know your identity. You were pretty obvious when you strolled into my shop with high level gear and a hood over your face, seeing as few people choose to do that for innocent reasons. You needn't fear for your safety, however. I trust you told me the truth in my shop, and I don't believe you would harm somebody just because you could. I have left out some food for you to eat when you wake up. Thank you for clearing the way to this level so I can live my dream of seeing the ocean.

"Regards, Fritz."

I close the message. Well. That's one he'll of a wakeup call. I need to be more careful from here on out, or else I might be recognized again. Next time, I might not be so lucky as to have someone willing to talk to me before alerting the KoB or Fuurinkazan or whoever. I quickly write a thank you letter to Fritz and send it, grab the sandwich (not as good as Asuna's, but still way better than trail rations) and leave. The door auto locks behind me, and I walk as quickly as I can towards the edges of the city. It takes me far longer than I thought it should have, but only because of one odd phenomenon that kept popping up.

There were monsters inside the city walls. Giant, see through ice creatures walked the streets, and everyone just hid from them as they lumbered past. It seems everyone has gotten used to this routine.

Suddenly, it strikes me. This city is technically under siege. In the book there was something about sieges. If a city is under siege, there is not two ways to lift it.

The first is to rid the city of monsters directly. Kill every hostile in the area. It's the better plan, to be honest. They automatically follow the players, so if all the players congregate in the main area, the city should be easily cleared. The only problem is that a small group has to go and close the gap so noting else gets in.

The other method is one that I like better. If you clear a floor, the siege stops. It's not usually a viable option, according to the book, since any player high enough level to clear the floor should be able to take out the siege anyway.

What the book doesn't know (and can't, since it's not a thinking object) is that while I could take these ice monsters on, I don't think I could deal with the aftermath of all the Clearers descending on me.

So, second option it is, no question about it.

I carefully head for the edge of the city, attempting to avoid the animated ice sculptures. It works until I am literally one hundred feet from the edge of town.

There, I find something distressing. A little girl, attempting to lure one of the giants away from a group of children. The other children run off as I watch, but the girl is trapped.

"Aw hell." I draw my sword. While I might not be able to hurt people within the walls of a city due to my red marker, I sure can kill anything else. I toss back my hood to let me have my peripheral vision back.

I really hope nobody is watching.

I run up to the nearest building and take a leap, running up the wall. The Ice Titan notices me and prioritizes me as the threat.

I land on the roof of the building I had dashed up and face the thing. It orients on me and bellows something unintelligible. I smirk.

It slams it's fist down at me, but I dodge to the side. It's fist comes into contact with the roof and sends a shockwave out. I seize my chance and leap up it's arm.

I had noticed that the creatures had exactly one imperfection. The back of their neck is dyed a reddish hue. Judging how everything in this universe has a weak point, I figured that had to be it. I run up to its shoulder, en draw two of my lava swords.

"Fire, meet ice." I bring my swords down on the red spot. The Ice Titan smashes into shards of ice, then into the polygons that signify it's death. I leap back to the roof before I fall to the ground. I sheath both of my swords and look around.

Okay, that attracted a lot of attention. I see at least ten players bearing down on me, and twice that number of Ice Titans.

"Hey!"

I look over the side of the roof to see the little girl. "Yes?"

"Thanks!"

She dashes away to a woman who embraces her and pulls her inside. From the windows, I can see the other kids looking out at me. They all have looks of wonderment in there eyes. I wonder if I used to look like that when I looked at Klein.

I turn away from the players and focus on the giants. If the other players wanted to attack me, then fine, but I'm getting rid of this problem. Something about that encounter had irked me. A little girl shouldn't have to sacrifice herself.

I run right up the second Ice Titan's arm just like I had the first, slashing as I reach the apex and using the collision of blade on ice to propel me towards the next ice giant. Both of them shatter, then shatter again. Unfortunately, this leaves me with no foothold. I crash to the ground and tumble abut until I hit something solid, cold and moving. I open my eyes to find one of the monstrous sculptures attempting to squish me. I tuck into a ball and roll out from underneath it just as it slams down, cracking the stone underfoot. The pressure wave takes a decent chunk out of my health bar and sends me flying. I land in somebodies rose bush. I poke my head out to see that the giant had redirected its attention to another player who had decided to attack the open target, yet had still failed to kill the thing.

"Idiot. Doesn't he know that's how you get killed?" I grumble. On the other hand, I had a nice view of it's neck...

The giant swings a massive arm and sweeps the other player off his feet. Caught in the icy grip, he struggles to get out, but it's in vain. Ice is unyielding.

I take out my bow. If I can make this shot, then this fight is going to go a lot more smoothly.

I take a deep breath, let it out, and let the arrow fly. It stabs right where I aimed it, in the back of the giant's neck. It crumbles into so much ice and cascades down.

The other player also drops, and none too gracefully either. I watch as he pries himself of the cobblestone street and glares at me.

"You'll pay, Kirito. You'll pay for what you did to my brother."

I hold my hands up. "If your talking about floor twenty, that was an accident."

The boy shakes his head. "No, it wasn't floor twenty. It was floor twelve."

"...huh?"

"You go up there on that wall, show off to everyone, and then just stop like it isn't you duty to continue. My brother was on those walls, and all this monsters you attracted killed him!"

The boy raises his extremely low level sword and charges me. I literally stand stock still and let the blade pass through my armor. My health bar barely even twitches.

"Look, it wasn't my fault all this monsters showed up. Even if it was, by the time I left, they were running from me, not the other way around. I didn't attract monsters."

He spits and slashes again, this time neatly slicing off a pinkie finger. Damn, that's going to take a whole to grow back.

"It doesn't matter! I'm going to get revenge!"

I grab his blade on the next pass and wrench it out of his grip. He tries to swing at my with his fists, but I grab his arms.

"Revenge? If you want to make this personal, I can." I look him right in the eyes and watch as his rage slowly turns into fear as he realizes his helplessness. "I can end you right outside that wall, right now. Actually, I could just toss you to the next Ice Titan that wanders past. So I would consider leaving and not coming back."

I toss him aside with a satisfying thump as he collides with a nearby building.

Hmm. I seem to have a picture of Fritz frowning at me stuck in my head. That's not good.

I run the rest of the distance to the wall, only stopping to dodge a particularly well aimed throwing knife that literally came out of nowhere. If I ever find out who threw that, I'm giving them a medal.

I hop over the wall without a glance back and land in waist high snow. Several of the Ice Titans look down at me.

This is going to hurt a lot, isn't it?

I prepare two lava blades and charge in.


	9. Chapter 9: MHCP001

I sigh as I open up yet another floor. After attempting to help those on the icy floor 29, I had been ejected by the crusaders that kept driving me further and further up the giant castle. I can't say I exactly understand why they didn't like me. Sure, I burned a few empty villages, but the keyword was empty. The first deaths had occurred when they were already chasing me. I mean…

Yeah, I was technically a fugitive. But even when other, more notorious criminals were incarcerated, there had never been quite the same response. In fact, the criminals I had captured, the red guild called the Laughing Coffin, had been released. I couldn't believe it. They got the entirety of floor 28 to themselves. Yeah, it was a mess of Lava and nobody actually wanted the space, but it still had a teleporter. I can only think of ways that system can fail. But back to topic, I was being hunted with a gusto that surprised me. I'm sure I hadn't pissed off that many people in the short time I have had my update.

Hell, it's only been two months, if that. In that time, I've claimed back what humanity had lost, up to floor 34. In fact, I was just about to hit the button to open this floor for use. Why had I stopped?

Oh yeah. Self-pity. I shake my head. I don't have time for that. At the rate I'm going at, eleven a month so far, it will be another half a year before I clear floor one hundred and leave this place forever, and that's if I don't slow down once the floors become harder. Also, maybe I should change it to 10.5 a month? I technically didn't clear 29, but I did beat the boss. Hmm.

Not really the time. I got distracted again. I really should press the button before I get off topic again. For some reason, I was still hesitating.

Why was I even attempting to clear this so fast? I mean, yeah, it said in the accursed book that once the boss of floor 100 was beaten, the game would be cleared and we would all exit the game forever. So then, was I fighting because I wanted out? That really didn't feel right to me. I was perfectly fine I this world, to be honest. I'm powerful. I could crush any other player I had ever met, maybe with the exception of Heathcliff… I'll get back to him later. Either way, I was in a position to live a hilariously comfortable life. I could hunt and kill my own food, make myself a home on the outskirts of a city that nobody was occupying, and never look back.

Maybe I was doing it to free the others? That seemed more accurate. Make them all see that they're living false lives. Then they'll be forced to acknowledge that I was right.

Hmm. Vindication. That's the most plausible explanation I've got so far, really. I look at the button. If I pressed it, there would be a few hit squads after me, judging by last time. Last time there had been twenty people after me. Twenty. I have no idea why they continue to charge straight in. The news hadn't exactly been helpful as of late, either. It was almost all anti-me propaganda. Hey, maybe that's why people are after me. I have bad press! I ignore that part of my brain. While it might be true, why was the media publishing lies about me in the first place? Maybe I pissed off one of the journalists or something.

Although, now that I think about it, three days ago, after I had finished off all the Ice Titans and made the city safe again for the first time in (twenty or so, I'm told) years, I had received a message. I was surprised, because I had set a filter on my message box that automatically deleted anything with certain words in it. Anything that could be described as hate mail, unless they were really creative with their wording, would be filtered out. So, getting a mail message from someone was unusual. Sure, anyone could send me mail now that my name was right up on the board of top ten players, but with that filter… I guess nobody had anything nice to say to me.

The message had contained praise for my actions. I almost thought it was blatant sarcasm, but then I realized why it wasn't. It was from the mother of the children I had saved. She had gone through the effort of finding out who I was and messaging me just to say her thanks.

Currently, that's the only email I haven't deleted. I deleted everything from my old life. Friends list, family connections, Mail, locator data, all of it. Aside from my name still on the top 10 list, I might as well be dead to most people. But I kept that message, because it gave me hope. Hope that not everyone in this fake world was a complete idiot.

I am 15. In the two months I had been able to level up normally, I had become the second most powerful player. That means while people like Klein fought as a "Clearer," he clearly wasn't doing his job right. He should be way past me by now. Asuna was level one after a year. And she was supposed to be a fighter. Once I got her off her ass, she was pretty decent, and had leveled pretty fast, getting to the top one hundred. Mmm, I should've mentioned. When I checked my rank on the board down of floor 1, after the floor 20 incident, I had located Asuna. It wasn't as if I was looking for her, but when your real name is the same as your nickname on the board, you tend to stand out a bit. She was rank 83, all those weeks ago. I wonder where she was now. Lizbeth, she at least had the excuse of working to build her blacksmith skills. Of course, you can only go so far in that before you end up hitting a wall called a level induced cap. If she had ventured outside the walls on floor five even once, just by stepping on those infernal lizards that were everywhere should allow her to gain a level or two.

That applied to anyone in any profession, really. My parents could put more points into charisma and strength and wind up really ahead of the game in terms of abilities among traders. This game, this stupid, virtual, fake world was built around fighting monsters to survive. And I'm one of the few actually attempting to do it. It boggles my mind, to be honest.

Oh look, here I am, delaying pressing this dumb button again. I take a deep breath. No fire this time, no tricks. Just fast escape and hopefully no death for anyone.

My fist slams down on the button. The now familiar voice announces that this floor is clear. By the time the first sounds of someone teleporting in are there to be heard, I'm already hauling myself up to the nearest roof. Once up, I check behind me.

The sight almost takes my breath away.

Over a hundred people, all wearing various guild colors. I recognize the Knights of the Blood Oath, Fuurinkazan, and several other clearing guilds… none of which deserved the title, seeing as I am the only one who was doing any clearing.

In front, I can see Heathcliff, Asuna, Klein, and surprisingly, Silica. Something in the way that none of them even made an attempt to charge me made me hesitate to run away.

Heathcliff clears his throat loudly, although nobody was making any sound at all. Frankly, he throat clearing was startling. "Kirito, Kirgaya Kazuto."

I cross my arms. "Yes? I'm kind busy trying to haul your asses out of a fake reality."

Murmurs start among the ranks, but Asuna silences them with a glare. Huh. Maybe she was growing up, at least a little bit.

"Actually, Kirito, We've been trying to contact you for a while now." He pulls a book- no, the book- out of a pouch on his side. "This book is disturbing. I trust you understand why?"

I put on my must patronizing smile and nod.

"Then you must know there is no truth to it." Heathcliff gestures all around himself at the other guild leaders lined up in front of their charges. "We've made a council, and have, as of this point in time, deemed all your claims false."

I snort. "It's not like I published them anywhere. I threw a book at their feet and left. Yell at them for spreading the truth."

"See, I don't understand how you can think this world is false? That is your claim, is it not?"

I nod. "Right. It's a fake world based on a real one-"

"And if that was true, wouldn't we see some evidence of it? Outside influences, or other things that happened without explanation? In this book, there is something called server maintenance. Everyone is supposed to return to this other worlds during that event. Yet, through thorough questioning, I was unable to determine that anyone ever felt like they were not in their own bodies."

Huh. He had me there to be honest. But I had seen the other side, it wasn't the product of my imagination.

Asuna steps up beside her leader. "Kirito, I know you don't sleep that well. I found some information that accredits hallucinations to lack of sleep. Are you sure you aren't experiencing anything like that?"

I blink down at her. True, I didn't get much, or any sleep, but I'm pretty sure I knew when I was awake and when I was hallucinating.

Klein steps forward. "Kirito, we want you to surrender to us. We need to figure some things out, maybe get you some help. I promise to get you back to the front lines as quickly as possible, and let you have a few breaks."

I stare down at them. I finally understand. "You… You all think I'm insane."

Asuna and Klien exchange a look. Silica looks down at the ground. In fact, only Heathcliff holds my gaze.

"Wow. Thanks for the vote of trust, you guys. Hey, yeah, I'll just follow back to floor 10 and sit there the rest of my life, as you all lie and tell me that I'll be free to go if I just wait a bit longer." I point to my chest. "I've seen the other side. I talked to people on the other side. I know it's not an illusion." I direct my gaze to Asuna. "You saw my log out button. I showed it to you."

Multiple gazes shift from the ground to the chestnut haired woman in the front of the crowd. She gulps nervously. "I-I did, but it might not do what you think it does."

I smirk. "Really. Why don't I prove it right now?" Actually, it was gone, ever since that one day, but…

Heathcliff shakes his head. "No need, for you see-"

He pinches his first two fingers together and swipes downwards. His menu opens, and-

No way. He has a log out button too? But… then… why wasn't he on my side? And how come it hadn't been taken away when mine was

He turns to face the crowd. "Watch as I press this button for myself." With exaggerated movements, he presses the button.

Nothing happens. The button turns yellow, but fails to do anything. I stare at him, flabbergasted. But… I'm sure that it worked for me… or am I? Asuna's words had thrown doubt onto my consciousness. Sleep deprivation could cause hallucinations…

The crowd almost all sigh and turn their gazes back to me. I must have had a look of confusion on my face, because Asuna gives me a weak smile. "Look, Kirito, I know this doesn't make sense, but you need to come back."

Asuna looks at Silica, who starts and then looks like she's trying to recall something. "Oh yeah, my grandpa started spreading his books around. They are causing a lot of panic on the lower floors."

"And, what do you plan on achieving by bringing me back?" I ask.

"We want you to quell the rumors and show that you do not, in fact, intend to end our world."

…Huh? I rack my brains. Well, I was clearing these floors rather quickly, and that book did say that the "game" would end once I cleared the last boss. Does that mean people were interpreting that to mean that this world would end if I cleared it?

That made no sense! Why would it go away?

"I'm sorry, but I don't think that's my problem. I thought it was the armies' job to keep civil order." I snark. "Well, I'm going. Nobody has ever beaten this floor before, so it's going to be interesting. See you."

I jump backwards off the roof. My agility score is high enough that I manage to stick the landing off a double backflip. I hear gasps from the other side, but I don't really care.

I may have seemingly kept my head straight the entire time, but inside I was starting to feel scared. What if it all was a hallucination? Most of my mind rejected it a patently ridiculous, but there was still a seed of doubt. As I bolt for the wall leading to the edge of the known world, something in my gut asks me.

"What if they are right?"

* * *

I cleared floor 34 easily. The boss had been a relative pushover, partly due to the fact I am level 57, and partly due to the fact it had lots of flammable fur. Smaug had gotten his fill of Death Mammoth meat, and I had been able to refill my stock of food. Not that it was that tasty, but it was better than rocks. It was easy to find the button to activate floor 35, the first completely new floor. Still I hesitated in pressing it. Maybe this time the entire army will come. Or maybe Asuna and her impromptu guild… Or was that my guild? I remember Asuna forcing me to join, but not much past that. It wasn't like I had wanted a group anyway. Their relatively low levels would only hinder my progress. I would need to slow down and let them catch up to me.

This is unacceptable. I need to keep pushing forward. So, I keep pushing forward. I move my hand to push the button.

Smaug perks his ears up from his resting position on my shoulder. I had learned that that usually meant someone or something was near. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, I could hide, identify the target, and take it down. The problem that set this apart from normal was that this city, called the Mist Ruins, was indeed both in ruins and covered in mist. Mist made it so only those with the best tracking skills could sense prey or a path. Dragons are hunters by nature, so the naturally have a high tracking skill.

I was starting to rely of the skinny blue dragon. I wasn't sure that was a good idea. I fact, I could pretty much certify it as a bad idea. Depending on other always seems to get you hurt.

Of course, all these thoughts shot out the window once I looked where Smaug was looking. Standing in the mist was a little girl. She had black hair, black eyes, and a dirty white dress. At least, I assume it was white at one point in time. She stares directly at me, her eyes unmoving.

"Umm…Hello." I say in my most cheerful tone. "Are you lost?"

The girl slowly shakes her head, her eyes never leaving mine. Okay, this is creepy.

"I'm just going to go hit that button now." I turn, keeping an eye on her until I'm sure she isn't going to leap at me. The second my eye loses sight of her, I feel a small hand on my wrist. I spin around-

She closed a twenty foot gap in the blink of an eye. I could feel myself starting to panic. Okay, this can't be real, or else it's just a ghost monster. Maybe trying to stab it with a sword would help?

Of course, that was assuming that I could reach my sword, but the little girl was holding my right hand with surprising strength for what looked like an 8 year old child.

She looks up at my admittedly terrified face, and I looked down at her grungy face. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Certain it was a bad idea, but not liking the thought of leaving this girl alone if there was a chance she was real (her grip, although strong, certainly felt real), I crouched down to her level. "What are you doing up here on this floor?" I ask in my kindest tone.

"Looking for you."

Okay, time break out the sword. This little girl is creepy as all get out.

"You are hurting. I'm here to help." She says. "I can help fix you."

I carefully edge backwards to the pedestal with the button on it. "I'm sure you can. Say, do you have a name?"

"I… I have a name. I am YUI-MHCP001"

That's… not a name. That's a very scary code, like all those in the back of the book under error codes. Maybe this girl is an error? That didn't make much sense…

"S-So, Yui, how did you get up here? Which floor do you come from?"

"Oh, none. I'm part of the system."

My level of fear drops. Confusion takes its place. "So you are part of the server?"

The girl smiles. "Exactly."

I look around. There's nobody else around. "Then, what are you?"

"I am a Mental Health Counseling Program. I am the first of my kind, developed to help the players during their long entrapment inside the Cardinal system mainframe. My main purpose is to ease the burdens on the players' minds as they travel."

"Ease their minds?" Oh wait, she said mental health. Obviously, she was designed to provide the same services that that weird group down of the fourth floor did, to help people get over traumas and things. "So, you're a therapist?"

Yui tilts her head. She still hasn't blinked. "Yes, that is an accurate description."

Suddenly, her entire body ripples and distorts, before becoming whole again. She looks down at herself and then back up at me. "I'm experiencing some glitches. Please excuse my appearance."

Then, something that startles both of us. Her stomach rumbles. I reach into my menu without thinking and hand some of the cooked mammoth jerky to her. She gratefully accepts it and starts munching. As she eats, her eyes return to normal, and the ripples become less violent. After she finished the last of the food, she smiles at me.

"Thanks for the food!"

I smile back. "You said you were looking for me?"

She nods. "It's my job to monitor the emotional states of everyone in the system. When I analyzed you, I found someone who wanted the best for everyone, at least at first."

I blink. Okay.

"Then, you slowly stopped trusting in others and ended up doing everything alone. There were several traumatizing incidents along the way, including a murder and several instances of being chased."

"I know all of this. Why are you telling me?"

She looks up at me with the saddest expression that I had ever seem. "At the rate you are going, you will never be happy again."

…What.

"What makes you say that?" I ask, maintaining a steady tone.

"For the past 2 months, your emotional state has steadily declined in the same pattern as those that have become regular murderers."

That statement hurt a lot more than it should have. I'm not a murderer, I just accidentally stabbed a guy through the chest… and ignited several others by accident…

"I decided to find you and try to bring you back to the way you were before." Yui says cheerily.

"I don't need your help, but thanks." I say, trying to put on a cheery tone to match hers. "I'm not going to be killing any more people if I don't have to."

"But your definition of need is relaxing. Back when the first error occurred, you wouldn't have abandoned your party for anything. Currently, you are all alone and being hunted. My predictions state that you are likely to start killing those that get in your way rather than dealing with them on a rational basis."

Well… It's not like the idea hadn't crossed my mind, but I was sure I wasn't going to kill someone just because it was convenient. "Okay then. No killing, unless I'll die as a result of me not killing."

Yui frowns. "That's-"

I cut her off. "Look, I'm kind of in a hurry here. I want to get to this floor's dungeon before it gets dark. If you want to help people, go down a few floors. There's plenty of people down there that could use your services." I point to the button. "Once I hit that, a lot of people are going to come out. Why don't you ask them if they need their minds read?"

Yui gets a sad look on her face. "Kirito-"

I slam my fist down on the button. The teleporter starts to hum as people were already trying to come through.

Yui stands in place as I bolt past her, into the mist.

* * *

I had been waiting on the teleporter pad with Klein and Leader when the chime that heralded an announcement had gone off. We all instantly stood up and prepare to teleport the instant a name was announced. The female voice reverberates through the air.

"Mist Ruin now open.

"Teleport, Mist ruin!" Three voices, one high pitched and two low, all yell in unison.

I take a few steps out of the pad and look out into the mist. The orientation on these teleports are maintained so, if you're looking east when you teleport, you continue to face east. We had all instinctively faced different directions while lining up on the telepad, so I'm the only one to see this next bit.

I think I see a shadow flickering away into the mist, but that is probably Kirito. Frankly, I hadn't really hoped to catch him this time. The three of us had just kind of been standing there to not lose face when we kept getting questions like, "Why isn't he caught yet?" and "When is the next floor going to open?"

What surprised me was that there was a little girl standing looking in the direction the shadow had disappeared. She looks like she had been abandoned to me. I instinctively walked up to her.

"Hello. Are you lost?"

The girl turns slightly and I'm startled by the pure black of her eyes. She looks a little bit like Kirito, actually. Maybe his younger sister? Definitely a relative of some sort.

The girl shakes her head. "I was here to see Kirito."

I nod. This fit. "Okay. Where are your parents?"

The girl raises a hand and points. I turns my head. The girl is pointing to… Heathcliff? I blink. "Are you sure? I wasn't aware Leader had a child."

The girl speaks again. "Don't let him see me."

My kind smile freezes on my face. "Huh?"

"He doesn't like me. He will try to kill me if he sees me." The girl looks towards the telepad.

"Eh…" I wasn't sure what to think, but the girl seemed to be stating this as a truth. I decided not to let him see her for the time being. Maybe there was a good reason she was running, maybe there wasn't. I would ask her later. "Okay, I live on the twelfth floor-"

The girl nods. "I know. I'll be there." She steps onto the edge of the platform and disappears after muttering the teleport command.

Klein comes back around. "No good. I couldn't see anything through the mist."

Heathcliff is his normal stoic self and just gazes at the two of us. I take that as him not seeing anything.

"I think I saw something disappear into the mist, but I'm not sure." I say. "It might have been a monster or something."

Heathcliff shakes his head. "Unless we catch him at a real disadvantage, we won't be able to catch him." He puts his hand under his chin and looks thoughtful. "I need to take some time off to work on a plan to catch Kirito. Asuna, you are in charge of the KoB until I get back."

I let my mouth open in shock. "B-But I'm not qualified!"

"You are the second most powerful member in my guild. I trust your judgment." He turns and activates the teleporter platform.

Klein shakes his head. "This isn't good. The rumors are starting to get pretty bad. If Heathcliff leaves, we're going to have problems."

I agree. "We need to catch him fast then."

Klein Sighs and looks up to the next floor. "Next floor, why don't we get as many people as possible to run as soon as they teleport and see if we can get him by reacting faster than him."

"We tried that on floor 23." I say mournfully. "It ended up in accusations and two breakups."

Klein frowns. "Wasn't there only 10 people on that one?"

I nod. "And four of them broke up with each other."

Klein remains silent.

I head back to the teleporter. "I don't feel like killing anything today. I'm going home."

Klein heaves a deep sigh. "Yeah, you're right. Get some sleep, we don't know when he's gonna unlock 36."

I wave goodbye and teleport down to level 12. I trudge past eyes that look at me with suspicion. Those eyes were always on me nowadays. After Kirito had left, I had basically been put on the spot. With my knowledge of his training techniques, I had been asked to train others in his style so that we could level up and not be entirely overwhelmed when we got to him.

I had grudgingly done so. The "secret" spread. I reached the top ten and was promoted to second in command of the KoB.

That when things started sliding downhill. I was given a group to command… But I wasn't able to figure out how. I was almost immediately branded a poor commander. I had no idea what I was doing. Worse, since I was doing a poor job, someone started up a rumor that I was helping Kirito escape his punishment by not leading them effectively. Funny how that once a rumor takes hold, it's impossible to get rid of. Then it spread to our repeated attempts to capture him once a floor opened. The ineffectiveness of anyone who was a Clearer, and then anyone whose main occupation was fighting. Soon, anyone who walked around with a weapon was given the evil eye.

And that's why I kept my head down as I walked up to my door, opened it, and shut it quietly behind me. As I straighten up, the frustration of the past two months reaches an unbearable level. I pick up a lamp and prepare to dash it against a wall in my rage.

"Asuna?"

I freeze in shock. I look around to find the little girl from earlier had not only somehow gotten into my house, but had armed herself with some of my weapons.

"Eh… How did you get in here?" is all I could say.

"I exist inside the system. I can modify it to my will." The girl says happily.

"S-System? But... what system?"

The girl tilts her head. "The Cardinal system."

"And what is that?" I look blankly at her. Huh, I wonder what Kirito would look like in my armor. If this girl had longer hair…

"It's… A long explanation. Instead, let me introduce myself. I am YUI-MHCP001. Kirito shortened my name to Yui."

"You met Kirito? How was he?"

"In a fluctuating emotional state which borders on sociopathic. He may need intervention soon. After careful consideration, you are the best candidate for his rehabilitation."

I'm not sure how I looked at that moment, but I'm pretty sure my jaw was on the floor. How did this little girl learn such big words? Maybe Kirito put her up to this, but when would she have time to practice it… I rub my scalp with both hands. "Okay, you said Kirito needs help? Why?"

"He is not emotionally stable. Recent event have been destabilizing him. If he continues down his path without intervention, he will continue to devolve into a violent person."

I blink at the short girl. "Yui, was it? Did Kirito put you up to this?"

Yui trains her unblinking eyes up to mine. "Kirito believes he has no need for counseling and ended our conversation abruptly by activating floor 35's teleportation system. He ran away just as you activated the teleport system."

"…Is that a no?"

"I was not commanded by Kirito. My main function is to rehabilitate players." Yui straightens. "You are also in need of some counseling, according to my algorithm's calculations. You seem to be sinking into depression, a leading cause of suicide. Would you like to talk about it?"

Yui gives me a smile so sweet I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or not. Was these word really coming out of this mouth?

"I… Who are you?" I ask.

"I am YUI-MHCP-"

"No, I mean, what are you?"

"I am a program designed to help players with mental disturbances during their incarceration in this world."

I shake my head to clear it. "Okay, pretend I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

Yui doesn't seem put off by this at all. "The Cardinal system was developed by Argus for use on this ship to allow for a comfortable journey. When the server was booted up there was a glitch that had several unintended consequences. The first was that the log out feature was completely removed. No longer would the players be able to get out of their chambers under their own will. The second was the institution of a real death system. If a player dies in the system, then that player would die in the real world. The third change was that several backup AI systems, such as myself, were locked out of player interactions. After 106 years of attempting to remove the code blockage, I was able to access players again. However, until Kirito unlocked floor 35, I was unable to descend to where there were other players. Thus, Kirito is the first person I have had the chance to interact with." Yui says all this before pausing for breath. Or, not, seeing as she didn't take a breath before speaking again. "I am still attempting to determine why he has rejected treatment."

I sit there in stunned silence. If Kirito hadn't put her up to this, then this would mean that he would be right about something odd going on. That he wasn't crazy.

"Yui, can you prove to me what you say is true?" I plead. "This is hard to take in."

Yui frowns. "I wasn't supposed to make your symptoms worse, but I have. I will attempt to remedy this." She hops off the bed and grabs on of my spare rapiers. She holds it by the blade, causing me to wince and glance at her health bar, but she didn't seem to have one. She also didn't have a marker, or any of those other things you expect to see around another person.

She points the sword towards her own chest-

I leap up to stop the blade from going any further, but it looks like there wasn't any need. Before the blade could touch her, a purple hexagon appeared out of nowhere. The blade bounced and shot off like a rocket. I barely have time to read the words "Immortal object" before the purple hexagon disappears.

I sit down on my bed in shock. Kirito… Kirito was right. This was a manufactured world, and this girl, this program, was part of it. I had seen the purple octagon before. Whenever you hit something that couldn't be destroyed, like the walls of a cell, one would block the attack. Needless to say, nobody ever had that happen to them before.

"I… Is there any way I can contact Kirito?" I murmur to nobody in particular. "He's ignored all my messages, because they've been so harsh, I guess."

Yui blinks. "Kirito hasn't read any messages with the exception of one within the past month. All emails are deleted less than 0.015 seconds after message is sent. I can conclude that he has filters running on his inbox that auto deletes items from certain people, or blocks messages with certain words in them. Since most messages came from random sources rather than previous friends, I can conclude that the likelihood is great that he is sorts by content rather than sender."

"So… If I send him a nice message, He will receive it?"

"With 87% probability." Yui answers confidently.

I quickly pull up the message window and type out something to Kirito. I make sure not to do any pleading, begging, or cursing that had been the contents of my messages before. Then I click the send button.

Yui blinks. "Message received. No deletion command received."

I smile weakly. "Good, so you were right. I need to apologize to him when I see him ag-"

"Message deleted."

I start. "Huh? But I thought you said that it got through!"

Lag time between receiving and deletion was 5.782 seconds. Auto deletion takes only .2% of the time that this deletion occurred at. The conclusion is that he manually deleted it after viewing the address."

I sink to the ground. "Kirito…"

* * *

Floor 35, boss room. I stand in front of two big iron doors that lead to the next boss. Thirty seconds ago I had received a message from Asuna. 25 seconds ago, I had deleted it. The seconds on the interim had been full of regret. I had acted on impulse, and now I can't read the message no matter what.

The message had gotten through, which means it had avoided all my filters. I have no idea what would change her mind from those first few messages… those were all pretty unnerving. I sit on a pillar with a flared bottom at just the right height for sitting.

Now, no matter what I said, I wouldn't be able to make it up to her.

I stand up and take a deep breath. "Okay. I can do this. Just kill the boss, and dodge a raging Asuna when she appears at the teleporter." I steel myself and turn around.

I had already cut my ties, hadn't I? Why was this final act of alienation so difficult to swallow?

I throw my thoughts away and touch the door. I had a boss to clear, and a game to beat. A game that nobody knows exists besides me and an old man in the mountains.


End file.
